Fig. 1.

Overview of Patch-seq technique. Access to the intracellular compartment of a single neuron is gained by whole-cell patch clamp (step 1) and the electrical properties of the cell, such as its firing pattern in response to depolarizing current injection, are recorded (step 2). The intracellular contents are aspirated into the patch pipette (step 3) and collected in a PCR tube (step 4) for downstream RNA-sequencing (step 5). The tissue slice, which retains the collapsed cell body and fine processes of the cell (step 6), is subjected to immunohistochemical staining to visualize the complex morphology of the cell (step 7). Adapted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature Biotechnology [1], copyright (2016)