Mariela Zirlinger, Gabriel Kreiman and David J. Anderson

Amygdala-Enriched Genes Identified by Microarray Technology Are Restricted to Specific Amygdaloid Sub-nuclei

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98: 5270-5275 (2001) PDF

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Microarray technology represents a potentially powerful method for identifying cell type- and regionally restricted genes expressed in the brain. Here we have combined a microarray analysis of differential gene expression among five selected brain regions, including the amygdala, cerebellum, hippocampus, olfactory bulb and periaqueductal gray, with in situ hybridization. On average, 0.3% of the 34,000 genes interrogated were highly enriched in each of the five regions, relative to the others. In situ hybridization performed on a subset of amygdala-enriched genes confirmed in most cases the overall region-specificity predicted by the microarray data, and identified additional sites of brain expression not examined on the microarrays. Strikingly, the majority of these genes exhibited boundaries of expression within the amygdala corresponding to cytoarchitectonically defined subnuclei. These results define a new set of molecular markers for amygdaloid subnuclei, and provide tools to genetically dissect their functional roles in different emotional behaviors.