An anatomy-constrained transcriptomic screen identifies a 19-gene panel with an ordered regional similarity pattern in the human somatosensory system

An anatomy-constrained transcriptomic screen has uncovered a 19-gene panel within the human somatosensory system that exhibits an ordered regional similarity pattern. By defining candidate pathways from neuroanatomical literature and screening 10,262 genes in the Body Index of Gene Expression (BIGE), researchers identified 19 genes that met the criteria for representation in the dorsal column-medial lemniscus (DCML) system.

This panel was evaluated in six Allen Human Brain Atlas (AHBA) donors across three central regional representations, including an aggregate of samples from the cuneate and gracile nuclei, the lateral group of nuclei in the dorsal thalamus, and the postcentral gyrus. The study found a positive correlation between adjacent representations in the anatomical sequence in all six donors, with a mean contrast value of T = 0.345175 (P = 0.109375).

The panel outperformed two distributions of 50,000 gene sets generated under similar selection constraints (P = 0.027919 and P = 0.026579). Descriptive anatomical comparisons ranked the panel third among 240 combinations and first among the target and 16 single-region substitutions. Overall, the findings support the hypothesis that this fixed gene panel exhibits regional similarity aligned with the central order of the DCML system, providing a specific target for further investigation in an independent anatomically resolved dataset.