Transcriptomics of the Carotid Body

The carotid body (CB) has emerged as a potential therapeutic target for treating sympathetically mediated cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic diseases. In adjunct to its classical role as an arterial O2 sensor, the CB is a multi-modal sensor activated by a range of stimuli in the circulation. However, consensus on how CB multimodality is achieved is lacking; even the best studied O2-sensing appears to involve multiple convergent mechanisms. A strategy to understand multimodal sensing is to adopt a hypothesis-free, high-throughput transcriptomic approach. This has proven instrumental for understanding fundamental mechanisms of CB response to hypoxia and other stimulants, its developmental niche, cellular heterogeneity, laterality, and pathophysiological remodeling in disease states. Herein, we review this published work that reveals novel molecular mechanisms underpinning multimodal sensing and reveals numerous gaps in knowledge that require experimental testing.