Single-nucleus RNA-seq of differentiating human myoblasts reveals the extent of fate heterogeneity.

ABSTRACT: Myoblasts are precursor skeletal muscle cells that differentiate into fused, multinucleated myotubes. Current single-cell microfluidic methods are not optimized for capturing very large, multinucleated cells such as myotubes. To circumvent the problem, we performed single-nucleus transcriptome analysis. Using immortalized human myoblasts, we performed RNA-seq analysis of single cells (scRNA-seq) and single nuclei (snRNA-seq) and found them comparable, with a distinct enrichment for long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in snRNA-seq. We then compared snRNA-seq of myoblasts before and after differentiation. We observed the presence of mononucleated cells (MNCs) that remained unfused and analyzed separately from multi-nucleated myotubes. We found that while the transcriptome profiles of myoblast and

SUBMITTER: Zeng W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5137429 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature