Reading papers I've found out that most interneurons express Calbindin, Calretinin and Parvalbumin, however I've also read that some pyramidal neurons do so as well, so I'm not too sure about using those genes for a interneuron molecular marker.
My intentions are not to study interneurons directly, but rather to localise them to rule them out of my actual research questions, that are related to pyramidal neurons.
Do you know of an interneuron molecular marker that:
1. Is expressed in most interneurons at developmental times AND
2. Is not expressed in pyramidal (excitatory) neurons
Thanks in advance!
Hi Sebastian
The markers you mention (parvalbumin, calbindin and calretinin) may be useful in marking cortical interneurons but, as you correctly mention, they stain some excitatory neurons, particularly in the thalamus. We typically use GAD65/67 to label GABA-ergic interneurons, and ChAT to identify cholinergic interneurons of the striatum. I don't recall ever looking at glycinergic interneurons.
We previously attempted to use several different CAMKIIa antibodies to label cortical pyramidal neurons without success due to its presence in some neurons without a pyramidal morphology (perhaps it marks projection neurons generally rather than pyramidal neurons specifically?).
I hope you find this helpful.
Best wishes,
Daniel
Hi Sebastian
The markers you mention (parvalbumin, calbindin and calretinin) may be useful in marking cortical interneurons but, as you correctly mention, they stain some excitatory neurons, particularly in the thalamus. We typically use GAD65/67 to label GABA-ergic interneurons, and ChAT to identify cholinergic interneurons of the striatum. I don't recall ever looking at glycinergic interneurons.
We previously attempted to use several different CAMKIIa antibodies to label cortical pyramidal neurons without success due to its presence in some neurons without a pyramidal morphology (perhaps it marks projection neurons generally rather than pyramidal neurons specifically?).
I hope you find this helpful.
Best wishes,
Daniel
Hi Sebastian,
As Daniel mentioned, the most definitive markers for interneurons are GAD65 and GAD67: if your cells do not express either of these, then they are not (inhibitory GABAergic) interneurons. All other interneuron markers (5HT3AR, PV, SOM, VIP, NPY, etc, etc, etc) are expressed in specific subtypes of interneuron so are not useful for excluding cells as interneurons.
CamKIIa is expressed in pretty much all glutamatergic neurons I've looked in (cortical and hippocampal pyramidal cells and thalamocortical relay neurons); I'm not sure if it it expresses in cortical L4 stellate cells or stellate cells in mEC. The only drawback with CamKIIa is that expression doesn't turn on until the 3rd week, so if you're using animals at
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