Spatial transcriptomics reveals organizational properties of mouse spinal cord and alterations in neuropathic pain

The spinal cord integrates diverse somatosensory inputs and executes motor outputs through anatomically and functionally distinct circuits. Here, we employed spatially resolved single-cell transcriptomic profiling of the adult mouse spinal cord to gain insights into the organizational logic of the spinal cord. Our results reveal distinct spatial and laminar distributions of neuronal subtypes, including axial level and sex-specific differences. Many neuronal subtypes exhibit close spatial proximity, implicating regionally specific patterns of connectivity and circuit functions. Additionally, neuronal subtypes within the dorsal horn exhibit a wide range of predicted cell-cell communication motifs, as assessed by the spatial distribution of neuropeptide- and other ligand-receptor pairs. Finally, we identified several neuronal subtypes with altered transcriptomic and predicted cell-cell communications in a model of neuropathic pain. This spatially resolved cellular and molecular map of the spinal cord will facilitate the decoding of circuit mechanisms underlying somatosensory and motor functions in health and disease.