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Systematic Analysis Of Transmitter Coexpression Reveals Organizing Principles Of Local Interneuron Heterogeneity, Kristyn M. Lizbinski, Gary Marsat, Andrew M. Dacks

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Broad neuronal classes are surprisingly heterogeneous across many parameters, and subclasses often exhibit partially overlapping traits including transmitter coexpression. However, the extent to which transmitter coex- pression occurs in predictable, consistent patterns is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that pairwise coexpression of GABA and multiple neuropeptide families by olfactory local interneurons (LNs) of the moth Manduca sexta is highly heterogeneous, with a single LN capable of expressing neuropeptides from at least four peptide families and few instances in which neuropeptides are consistently coexpressed. Using computational modeling, we demonstrate that observed coexpression patterns cannot be explained by independent probabilities of expres- sion …