Leveraging deep single-soma RNA sequencing to explore the neural basis of human somatosensation

The versatility of somatosensation arises from heterogeneous dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. However, soma transcriptomes of individual human (h)DRG neurons—critical information to decipher their functions—are lacking due to technical difficulties. In this study, we isolated somata from individual hDRG neurons and conducted deep RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to detect, on average, over 9,000 unique genes per neuron, and we identified 16 neuronal types. These results were corroborated and validated by spatial transcriptomics and RNAscope in situ hybridization. Cross-species analyses revealed divergence among potential pain-sensing neurons and the likely existence of human-specific neuronal types. Molecular-profile-informed microneurography recordings revealed temperature-sensing properties across human sensory afferent types. In summary, by employing single-soma deep RNA-seq and spatial transcriptomics, we generated an hDRG neuron atlas, which provides insights into human somatosensory physiology and serves as a foundation for translational work. Dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) contain a plethora of neuron types. The authors show that the existence of human-specific DRG neuronal types and microneurography recordings reveal distinct temperature-sensing properties across human sensory afferent types.