The NIH BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) has issued its first data release: Posted on a public web portal for researchers, it profiles molecular identities of more than 1.3 million mouse brain cells and anatomical data from 300 mouse brains.
BICCN research teams focused initially on a key area of the mouse motor cortex, an area of the brain that controls movement, as a first major step in the 5-year effort. Initiated in 2017, the BICCN projects aim to build comprehensive, three-dimensional common reference brain atlases that will ultimately integrate molecular, anatomical, and functional data on cell types in mouse, human, and non-human primate brains. To expedite scientific impact, they are making their data immediately available to the research community via the web portal.
"No single research group could do this by themselves—they needed to leverage the power of a team," says Dr. Joshua Gordon of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). "The BICCN is a product of nine different teams each bringing to bear their finely-honed tools to the same brain region at the same time. By doing so, they could compare results and create a unified resource for the community."
The new molecular fingerprints cover comprehensive information on gene transcription and epigenomic signature maps of the brain cells. Each type of cell is classified according to its molecular characteristics and identifiable by marker genes.
"We are witnessing an unprecedented and accelerated evolution of technologies that permit molecular fingerprinting of individual cells," notes Dr. Andrea Beckel-Mitchener, also of NIMH. "The BICCN projects enable new studies in the wider scientific community by providing novel tools and data to understand basic biology and disease conditions at the cellular level. Over the next few years, we expect similar data from millions of human cells that will help us understand what goes awry in human brain disorders."