Regulation of dynamic pigment cell states at single-cell resolution
- Brown University, United States
- Valdosta State University, United States
Abstract
Cells bearing pigment have diverse roles and are often under strict evolutionary selection. Here, we explore the regulation of pigmented cells in the purple sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, an emerging model for diverse pigment function. We took advantage of single cell RNA-seq (scRNAseq) technology and discovered that pigment cells in the embryo segregated into two distinct populations, a mitotic cluster and a post-mitotic cluster. Gcm is essential for expression of several genes important for pigment function, but is only transiently expressed in these cells. We discovered unique genes expressed by pigment cells and test their expression with double fluorescence in situ hybridization. These genes include new members of the fmo family that are expressed selectively in pigment cells of the embryonic and in the coelomic cells of the adult - both cell-types having immune functions. Overall, this study identifies nodes of molecular intersection ripe for change by selective evolutionary pressures.
Data availability
The sequencing data have been made publicly available at Gene Expression Omnibus under GSE155427
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Sp single cell RNA-seqNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE155427.
Article and author information
Author details
Margherita Perillo
Funding
National Institutes of Health (9RO1GM125071)
- Gary Wessel
National Institutes of Health (1R01GM132222)
- Gary Wessel
National Institutes of Health (1P20GM119943)
- Nathalie Oulhen
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2020, Perillo et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Regulation of dynamic pigment cell states at single-cell resolution
eLife 9:e60388.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.60388
Further reading
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- Developmental Biology
During the first lineage segregation, mammalian embryos generate the inner cell mass (ICM) and trophectoderm (TE). ICM gives rise to the epiblast (EPI) that forms all cell types of the body, an ability referred to as pluripotency. The molecular mechanisms that induce pluripotency in embryos remain incompletely elucidated. Using knockout (KO) mouse models in conjunction with low-input ATAC-seq and RNA-seq, we found that Oct4 and Sox2 gradually come into play in the early ICM, coinciding with the initiation of Sox2 expression. Oct4 and Sox2 activate the pluripotency-related genes through the putative OCT-SOX enhancers in the early ICM. Furthermore, we observed a substantial reorganization of chromatin landscape and transcriptome from the morula to the early ICM stages, which was partially driven by Oct4 and Sox2, highlighting their pivotal role in promoting the developmental trajectory toward the ICM. Our study provides new insights into the establishment of the pluripotency network in mouse preimplantation embryos.
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