Meeting Abstract
Establishing and maintenance of neuronal identity are key epigenetic processes where expression of several thousand genes is tightly co-regulated in each cell within neural circuits. These processes are mainly elusive due to the lack of data available to probe epigenetic mechanisms at the single-cell level. Here we evaluate the role of DNA methylation in regulating neuronal identity by combining the power of single-cell transcriptome and methylome data from unambiguously identified single neurons within feeding, defensive and memory circuits. To our knowledge, this is the first time transcriptome and methylome data from the same identifiable single neurons has been compared. Specifically, we applied this integrative approach for examining the role of epigenetic modifications in the patterning of transmitter phenotypes and identified a set of both evolutionary conserved and lineage-specific genes in control of neuronal identity across species.
