A global molecular code for birth order and neuronal identity in Drosophila

A high-resolution developmental transcriptional atlas of the Drosophila melanogaster ventral nerve cord (VNC), revealing organisational principles of neuronal specification, birth-order encoding, and sexual dimorphism of the ~16,000 intrinsic neurons described in the connectome.

Atlas at a glance

459,091
Cells sequenced
302,765
Neurons in atlas
38x
Aggregate coverage
4
Developmental stages
34
Hemilineages
122
Hemilineage–segment combinations

Atlas browser

Interactively explore the full dataset — neurons, glia, annotations, gene expression and link to neurons in the connectome.

Multiple embeddings
Switch between all cells, neurons (stage integrated and not integrated UMAPs), primary/secondary subsets, and glia.
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Gene expression
Visualise the expression of up to three genes at a time. Three-channel blending for co-expression.
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Sub-cluster UMAPs
Click on any hemilineage to view its precomputed sub-UMAP, including cluster annotations and cluster-specific differential gene expression results between males and females.
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Dynamic analysis
Lasso-select cells to compute on-the-fly sub-UMAPs and differential gene expression.
Metadata & Filtering
Color cells by metadata attributes (stage, sex, hemilineage, soma neuromere, neurotransmitter, fru clones, etc.) and filter by developmental stage (6–48 h APF).
Extend annotations
Help connect atlas cells to MANC neurons.
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