Figure 1

Overview of LOC689986 gene expression patterns in the adult rat brain. A. Microarray gene expression profile illustrating the differential LOC689986 expression in areas of the adult rat brain and non-CNS tissues (kidney, liver and spleen). A total of six brain samples from three individual rats, both left and right hemispheres, in addition to non-CNS samples are indicated on the x-axis. The normalised signal intensity is indicated on the y-axis. FMCx: frontomedial cortex, TCx: temporal cortex, OCx: occipital cortex, Hippo: hippocampus, Cerebell: cerebellum. The gene expression profile was generated based on microarray data obtained from [10, 11]. B. The LOC689986 average relative gene expression in tissue samples from 25 consecutive areas of the adult rat neocortex, covering the temporal- parietal- and occipital lobes (left hemisphere, Additional file 1). Corresponding samples from six individual adult rats were analysed. Actb was used as an endogenous control to normalise the expression levels, and the average relative gene expression in the 25 neocortical samples was transformed into percentage values, based on the region showing the highest gene expression (set to 100%, all other regions were relative to this). The gene expression is indicated by a heat-map superimposed on the rat brain (red: high expression, white: low expression). The uppermost row in the heat-map (black arrows indicating the direction) represents samples from the cingulate cortex. The figure is based upon a picture of the adult rat brain (lateral view, image courtesy of Adam C. Puche) and acquired from The Olfactory Image Archive. C. In situ RNA hybridisation analysis on coronal sections of the adult rat brain, illustrating the mRNA expression of LOC689986 in layer 4 of the primary and secondary SCx. The approximate location of the different neocortical areas is indicated [25]. The schematic drawing of the brain which indicates the area analysed was obtained from http://www.motifolio.com.