The emergence of transcriptional identity in somatosensory neurons.

More than twelve morphologically and physiologically distinct subtypes of primary somatosensory neuron report salient features of our internal and external environments. It is unclear how specialized gene expression programs emerge during development to endow these subtypes with their unique properties. To assess the developmental progression of transcriptional maturation of each subtype of principal somatosensory neuron, we generated a transcriptomic atlas of cells traversing the primary somatosensory neuron lineage in mice.