單細胞和空間轉錄組揭示類原腸胚的體節發生
作者:
小柯機器人發布時間:2020/3/3 11:31:58
荷蘭烏得勒支大學醫學中心Alexander van Oudenaarden、Susanne C. van den Brink等研究人員合作利用單細胞和空間轉錄組揭示了類原腸胚的體節發生。相關論文於2020年2月19日在線發表在《自然》雜誌上。
研究人員使用單細胞RNA測序和空間轉錄組學來比較了小鼠類原腸胚與小鼠胚胎。他們確定了各種以前未知的類原腸胚細胞類型,並表明在胚胎和類原腸胚之間相似地表達了體節發生的關鍵調控因子。使用實時成像,研究人員表明體節發生時鐘活躍在類原腸胚中,並具有類似於體內的動態。因為類原腸胚可以大量生長,所以他們進行了一個小型篩選,從而揭示了降低的FGF信號如何誘導胚胎中的短尾表型。最後,研究人員證明了在基質膠中包埋會誘導類原腸胚產生具有正確頭尾模式的體節,隨著時間沿前後方向依次出現。因此,這項研究顯示了類原腸胚作為模型系統的能力,其能夠以高通量方式研究體外發育和體節發生。
據了解,類原腸胚是胚胎幹細胞的三維聚集體,在著床後表現出哺乳動物發育的關鍵特徵,包括胚層分化和軸向形成。目前,人們已經利用顯微鏡研究了類原腸胚中少數基因的表達模式,並且尚不清楚在類原腸胚在模擬胚胎時全基因組表達模式到達何種程度。
附:英文原文
Title: Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics reveal somitogenesis in gastruloids
Author: Susanne C. van den Brink, Anna Alemany, Vincent van Batenburg, Naomi Moris, Marloes Blotenburg, Judith Vivi, Peter Baillie-Johnson, Jennifer Nichols, Katharina F. Sonnen, Alfonso Martinez Arias, Alexander van Oudenaarden
Issue&Volume: 2020-02-19
Abstract: Gastruloids are three-dimensional aggregates of embryonic stem cells that display key features of mammalian development after implantation, including germ-layer specification and axial organization1,2,3. To date, the expression pattern of only a small number of genes in gastruloids has been explored with microscopy, and the extent to which genome-wide expression patterns in gastruloids mimic those in embryos is unclear. Here we compare mouse gastruloids with mouse embryos using single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics. We identify various embryonic cell types that were not previously known to be present in gastruloids, and show that key regulators of somitogenesis are expressed similarly between embryos and gastruloids. Using live imaging, we show that the somitogenesis clock is active in gastruloids and has dynamics that resemble those in vivo. Because gastruloids can be grown in large quantities, we performed a small screen that revealed how reduced FGF signalling induces a short-tail phenotype in embryos. Finally, we demonstrate that embedding in Matrigel induces gastruloids to generate somites with the correct rostral–caudal patterning, which appear sequentially in an anterior-to-posterior direction over time. This study thus shows the power of gastruloids as a model system for exploring development and somitogenesis in vitro in a high-throughput manner.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2024-3
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2024-3