A searchable image resource of Drosophila GAL4 driver expression patterns with single neuron resolution
Geoffrey W Meissner, Aljoscha Nern, Zachary Dorman, Gina M DePasquale, Kaitlyn Forster, Theresa V Gibney, Joanna H Hausenfluck, Yisheng He, Nirmala Iyer, Jennifer Jeter, Lauren Johnson, Rebecca M. Johnston, Kelley Lee, Brian Melton, Brianna Yarbrough, Christopher T Zugates, Jody Clements, Cristian Goina, Hideo Otsuna, Konrad Rokicki, Robert Svirskas, Yoshinori Aso, Gwyneth M Card, Barry J. Dickson, Erica Ehrhardt, Jens Goldammer, Masayoshi Ito, Dagmar Kainmueller, Wyatt Korff, Lisa Mais, Ryo Minegishi, Shigehiro Namiki, Gerald M. Rubin, Gabriella R Sterne, Tanya Wolff, Oz Malkesman, FlyLight Project Team
Abstract
neuroscience. Neuronal targeting is typically documented using light microscopy of full GAL4 expression patterns, which generally lack the single-cell resolution required for reliable cell type identification. Here, we use stochastic GAL4 labeling with the MultiColor FlpOut approach to generate cellular resolution confocal images at large scale. We are releasing aligned images of 74,000 such adult central nervous systems. An anticipated use of this resource is to bridge the gap between neurons identified by electron or light microscopy. Identifying individual neurons that make up each GAL4 expression pattern improves the prediction of split-GAL4 combinations targeting particular neurons. To this end, we have made the images searchable on the NeuronBridge website. We demonstrate the potential of NeuronBridge to rapidly and effectively identify neuron matches based on morphology across imaging modalities and datasets.