The transcriptome of TRPV1-positive sensory neurons revealed by subgroup-elimination transcriptomics

We developed an approach to rapidly eliminate the subgroup of sensory neurons expressing the heat-gated cation channel TRPV1 from dissociated rat sensory ganglia using agonist treatment followed by density centrifugation. To identify transcripts predomintly expressed in TRPV1-positive neurons, we compared the transcriptome of all cells within sensory ganglia versus all cells without TRPV1 expressing neurons using RNA-Seq. Four replicate experiments with RNA from DRG neurons of one rat per experiment were performed. Dissociated neurons were split up in three parts, treated with solvent DMSO (0.1%), casaicin (10 µM), or RTX (100 nM) for 30 min followed by gradient centrifugation. RNA was extracted from the remaining pellet containing either all cells or all cells without TRPV1-positive neurons.