Abstract

To study disease development, an inventory of an organ's cell types and understanding of physiologic function is paramount. Here, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing to examine heterogeneity of murine pancreatic duct cells, pancreatobiliary cells, and intrapancreatic bile duct cells. We describe an epithelial-mesenchymal transitory axis in our three pancreatic duct subpopulations and identify osteopontin as a regulator of this fate decision as well as human duct cell dedifferentiation. Our results further identify functional heterogeneity within pancreatic duct subpopulations by elucidating a role for geminin in accumulation of DNA damage in the setting of chronic pancreatitis. Our findings implicate diverse functional roles for subpopulations of pancreatic duct cells in maintenance of duct cell identity and disease progression and establish a comprehensive road map of murine pancreatic duct cell, pancreatobiliary cell, and intrapancreatic bile duct cell homeostasis.

Data availability

Sequencing data have been deposited in GEO under accession code GSE159343.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Audrey Marie Hendley

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Arjun Arkal Rao

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Laura Leonhardt

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Sudipta Ashe

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Jennifer A Smith

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Simone Giacometti

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Xianlu L Peng

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Honglin Jiang

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. David Berrios

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Mathias Pawlak

    N/A, BlueRock Therapeutics, Boston, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Lucia Y Li

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Jonghyun Lee

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  13. Eric A Collisson

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8037-9388
  14. Mark S Anderson

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3093-4758
  15. Gabriela K Fragiadakis

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  16. Jen Jen Yeh

    University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  17. Jimmie Ye Chun

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  18. Grace E Kim

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  19. Valerie M Weaver

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  20. Matthias Hebrok

    University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
    For correspondence
    Matthias.Hebrok@ucsf.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3833-8862

Funding

National Cancer Institute (F32 CA221114)

  • Audrey Marie Hendley

Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research (Seed Grant)

  • Audrey Marie Hendley

National Cancer Institute (R01 CA222862)

  • Eric A Collisson

National Cancer Institute (R01 CA172045)

  • Matthias Hebrok

Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI Opportunity Grant)

  • Matthias Hebrok

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (AN170192) of the University of California San Francisco.

Copyright

© 2021, Hendley 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.

Metrics

  • 4,686
    views
  • 582
    downloads
  • 29
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Audrey Marie Hendley
  2. Arjun Arkal Rao
  3. Laura Leonhardt
  4. Sudipta Ashe
  5. Jennifer A Smith
  6. Simone Giacometti
  7. Xianlu L Peng
  8. Honglin Jiang
  9. David Berrios
  10. Mathias Pawlak
  11. Lucia Y Li
  12. Jonghyun Lee
  13. Eric A Collisson
  14. Mark S Anderson
  15. Gabriela K Fragiadakis
  16. Jen Jen Yeh
  17. Jimmie Ye Chun
  18. Grace E Kim
  19. Valerie M Weaver
  20. Matthias Hebrok
(2021)
Single cell transcriptome analysis defines heterogeneity of the murine pancreatic ductal tree
eLife 10:e67776.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67776

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67776

Further reading

    1. Cancer Biology
    2. Cell Biology
    Kourosh Hayatigolkhatmi, Chiara Soriani ... Simona Rodighiero
    Tools and Resources

    Understanding the cell cycle at the single-cell level is crucial for cellular biology and cancer research. While current methods using fluorescent markers have improved the study of adherent cells, non-adherent cells remain challenging. In this study, we addressed this gap by combining a specialized surface to enhance cell attachment, the FUCCI(CA)2 sensor, an automated image analysis pipeline, and a custom machine learning algorithm. This approach enabled precise measurement of cell cycle phase durations in non-adherent cells. This method was validated in acute myeloid leukemia cell lines NB4 and Kasumi-1, which have unique cell cycle characteristics, and we tested the impact of cell cycle-modulating drugs on NB4 cells. Our cell cycle analysis system, which is also compatible with adherent cells, is fully automated and freely available, providing detailed insights from hundreds of cells under various conditions. This report presents a valuable tool for advancing cancer research and drug development by enabling comprehensive, automated cell cycle analysis in both adherent and non-adherent cells.

    1. Cell Biology
    Fatima Tleiss, Martina Montanari ... C Leopold Kurz
    Research Article

    Multiple gut antimicrobial mechanisms are coordinated in space and time to efficiently fight foodborne pathogens. In Drosophila melanogaster, production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) together with intestinal cell renewal play a key role in eliminating gut microbes. A complementary mechanism would be to isolate and treat pathogenic bacteria while allowing colonization by commensals. Using real-time imaging to follow the fate of ingested bacteria, we demonstrate that while commensal Lactiplantibacillus plantarum freely circulate within the intestinal lumen, pathogenic strains such as Erwinia carotovora or Bacillus thuringiensis, are blocked in the anterior midgut where they are rapidly eliminated by antimicrobial peptides. This sequestration of pathogenic bacteria in the anterior midgut requires the Duox enzyme in enterocytes, and both TrpA1 and Dh31 in enteroendocrine cells. Supplementing larval food with hCGRP, the human homolog of Dh31, is sufficient to block the bacteria, suggesting the existence of a conserved mechanism. While the immune deficiency (IMD) pathway is essential for eliminating the trapped bacteria, it is dispensable for the blockage. Genetic manipulations impairing bacterial compartmentalization result in abnormal colonization of posterior midgut regions by pathogenic bacteria. Despite a functional IMD pathway, this ectopic colonization leads to bacterial proliferation and larval death, demonstrating the critical role of bacteria anterior sequestration in larval defense. Our study reveals a temporal orchestration during which pathogenic bacteria, but not innocuous, are confined in the anterior part of the midgut in which they are eliminated in an IMD-pathway-dependent manner.