Molecular and electrophysiological features of GABAergic neurons in the dentate gyrus reveal limited homology with cortical interneurons

PLoS One. 2022 Jul 8;17(7):e0270981. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270981. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

GABAergic interneurons tend to diversify into similar classes across telencephalic regions. However, it remains unclear whether the electrophysiological and molecular properties commonly used to define these classes are discriminant in the hilus of the dentate gyrus. Here, using patch-clamp combined with single cell RT-PCR, we compare the relevance of commonly used electrophysiological and molecular features for the clustering of GABAergic interneurons sampled from the mouse hilus and primary sensory cortex. While unsupervised clustering groups cortical interneurons into well-established classes, it fails to provide a convincing partition of hilar interneurons. Statistical analysis based on resampling indicates that hilar and cortical GABAergic interneurons share limited homology. While our results do not invalidate the use of classical molecular marker in the hilus, they indicate that classes of hilar interneurons defined by the expression of molecular markers do not exhibit strongly discriminating electrophysiological properties.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Dentate Gyrus*
  • GABAergic Neurons*
  • Interneurons / metabolism
  • Mice

Associated data

  • Dryad/10.5061/dryad.37pvmcvp1

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a grant from the France Alzheimer Association (www.francealzheimer.org/). The work was also supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (www.cnrs.fr/fr), the University of Toulouse 3 (www.univ-toulouse.fr) and the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle-Paris (ESPCI Paris, www.espci.psl.eu/en). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.