Olfactory neurons project their axons to spatially invariant glomeruli in the olfactory bulb, forming an ordered pattern of innervation comprising the olfactory sensory map. A mirror symmetry exists within this map, such that neurons expressing a given receptor typically project to one glomerulus on the medial face and one glomerulus on the lateral face of the bulb. The mechanisms underlying an olfactory neuron's choice to project medially versus laterally remain largely unknown, however. Here we demonstrate that insulin-like growth factor (IGF) signaling is required for sensory innervation of the lateral olfactory bulb. Mutations that eliminate IGF signaling cause axons destined for targets in the lateral bulb to shift to ectopic sites on the ventral-medial surface. Using primary cultures of olfactory and cerebellar neurons, we further show that IGF is a chemoattractant for axon growth cones. Together these observations reveal a role of IGF signaling in sensory map formation and axon guidance.

Traditional methods for selecting aptamers require multiple rounds of selection and optimization in order to identify aptamers that bind with high affinity to their targets. Here we describe an assay that requires only one round of positive selection followed by high-throughput DNA sequencing and informatic analysis in order to select high-affinity aptamers. The assay is flexible, requires less hands on time, and can be used by laboratories with minimal expertise in aptamer biology to quickly select high-affinity aptamers to a target of interest. This assay has been utilized to successfully identify aptamers that bind to thrombin with dissociation constants in the nanomolar range.

Fusion genes are known to be key drivers of tumor growth in several types of cancer. Traditionally, detecting fusion genes has been a difficult task based on fluorescent in situ hybridization to detect chromosomal abnormalities. More recently, RNA sequencing has enabled an increased pace of fusion gene identification. However, RNA-Seq is inefficient for the identification of fusion genes due to the high number of sequencing reads needed to detect the small number of fusion transcripts present in cells of interest. Here we describe a method, Single Primer Enrichment Technology (SPET), for targeted RNA sequencing that is customizable to any target genes, is simple to use, and efficiently detects gene fusions. Using SPET to target 5701 exons of 401 known cancer fusion genes for sequencing, we were able to identify known and previously unreported gene fusions from both fresh-frozen and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue RNA in both normal tissue and cancer cells.

How olfactory sensory neurons converge on spatially invariant glomeruli in the olfactory bulb is largely unknown. In one model, olfactory sensory neurons interact with spatially restricted guidance cues in the bulb that orient and guide them to their target. Identifying differentially expressed molecules in the olfactory bulb has been extremely difficult, however, hindering a molecular analysis of convergence. Here, we describe several such genes that have been identified in a screen that compiled microarray data to create a three-dimensional model of gene expression within the mouse olfactory bulb. The expression patterns of these identified genes form the basis of a nascent spatial map of differential gene expression in the bulb