Neuronal subtype-specific growth cone and soma purification from mammalian CNS via fractionation and fluorescent sorting for subcellular analyses and spatial mapping of local transcriptomes and proteomes.

During neuronal development, growth cones (GCs) of projection neurons navigate complex extracellular environments to reach distant targets, thereby generating extraordinarily complex circuitry. These dynamic structures located at the tips of axonal projections respond to substrate-bound as well as diffusible guidance cues in a neuronal subtype- and stage-specific manner to construct highly specific and functional circuitry. In vitro studies of the past decade indicate that subcellular localization of specific molecular machinery in GCs underlies the precise navigational control that occurs during circuit 'wiring'. Our laboratory has recently developed integrated experimental and analytical approaches enabling high-depth, quantitative proteomic and transcriptomic investigation of subtype- and stage-specific GC molecular machinery directly from the rodent central nervous system (CNS) in vivo. By using these approaches, a pure population of GCs and paired somata can be isolated from any neuronal subtype of the CNS that can be fluorescently labeled. GCs are dissociated from parent axons using fluid shear forces, and a bulk GC fraction is isolated by buoyancy ultracentrifugation. Subtype-specific GCs and somata are purified by recently developed fluorescent small particle sorting and established FACS of neurons and are suitable for downstream analyses of proteins and RNAs, including small RNAs. The isolation of subtype-specific GCs and parent somata takes ~3 h, plus sorting time, and ~1-2 h for subsequent extraction of molecular contents. RNA library preparation and sequencing can take several days to weeks, depending on the turnaround time of the core facility involved.

Subcellular transcriptomes and proteomes of developing axon projections in the cerebral cortex.

The development of neural circuits relies on axon projections establishing diverse, yet well-defined, connections between areas of the nervous system. Each projection is formed by growth cones-subcellular specializations at the tips of growing axons, encompassing sets of molecules that control projection-specific growth, guidance, and target selection1. To investigate the set of molecules within native growth cones that form specific connections, here we developed growth cone sorting and subcellular RNA-proteome mapping, an approach that identifies and quantifies local transcriptomes and proteomes from labelled growth cones of single projections in vivo. Using this approach on the developing callosal projection of the mouse cerebral cortex, we mapped molecular enrichments in trans-hemispheric growth cones relative to their parent cell bodies, producing paired subcellular proteomes and transcriptomes from single neuron subtypes directly from the brain. These data provide generalizable proof-of-principle for this approach, and reveal molecular specializations of the growth cone, including accumulations of the growth-regulating kinase mTOR2, together with mRNAs that contain mTOR-dependent motifs3,4. These findings illuminate the relationships between subcellular distributions of RNA and protein in developing projection neurons, and provide a systems-level approach for the discovery of subtype- and stage-specific molecular substrates of circuit wiring, miswiring, and the potential for regeneration.