Fig. 1

Isolation of single OSNs and identification of mature cells expressing a single predominant OR.

(A) Method of isolation of single OSNs. Transgenic zebrafish embryos expressing OMP:RFP were raised to 48hpf. Olfactory epithelia were dissected and dissociated to obtain single-cell suspensions. OMP:RFP expressing neurons were enriched using FACS and loaded onto a Fluidigm C1 microfluidics chip to isolate single cells in singe wells. cDNA synthesis and amplification were carried out directly on the chip. Samples with high yields of cDNA and smooth distributions of RNA lengths were processed though Nextera library prep and Illumina sequencing. (B) A heatmap of normalized marker gene values for 47 single OSN transcriptomes. 5 cells were enriched in markers of progenitor and/or early mature stages (shaded in black on top bar). 42 cells showed strong expression of mature OSN marker genes and low expression of progenitor/earlier mature genes. High OR expression levels (second bar:cyan) were detected in 29 of these mature cells (shaded in magenta on top bar). Three color keys are shown at the bottom: the first pertains to cell age inferred in the topmost bar, the second pertains to log10 values of normalized (predominant) OR expression, and the third relates to log10 values of normalized developmental gene expression.