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Single-cell RNA-sequencing of in vitro fertilized and nuclear transfer embryos

ABSTRACT: Somatic cell nuclear transfer and transcription factor overexpression can induce reprogramming of somatic cells, whereby one cell fate is changed into another cell fate of choice. Yet the efficiency of this process for generating functional cells is low, limiting their therapeutic applications. The persistence of transcriptional memory from the cell's prior identity is thought to be a major hindrance to effective reprogramming and differentiation to functional cell types. To explore the effects of transcriptional memory on cell fate specification of reprogrammed cells, we analyzed epidermal tissue development in nuclear transfer embryos derived from endoderm nuclei. Our findings reveal variations in the success rate of differentiation to functional cells across cell types in cloned embryos. While some cell types, such as goblet cells, differentiated normally, a specific subset of cells resisted cell fate reprogramming, adopting a new endoderm-like state and disrupting normal body patterning. Furthermore, inefficient transcriptional reprogramming correlated with reduced basal stem cell populations, faulty differentiation of basal stem cell-derived fates, and increased cell death in the epidermis of cloned embryos. Crucially, we identified that the memory of active transcriptional states linked to key endoderm transcription factors plays a significant role in these issues. Mimicking active state transcriptional memory of these genes through the forced expression of Sox17b and Foxa4 in the epidermis of fertilized embryos produced the same defects. On the contrary, reducing transcriptional memory by interfering with the expression of Sox17b led to the rescue of observed epidermal defects. In summary, our study suggests that transcriptional memory tends to persist predominantly in specific reprogrammed cell types, hindering their differentiation into functional cells and embryonic structures. This underscores the critical need to assess and reduce transcriptional memory from the previous somatic identity during reprogramming, to efficiently generate functional cell types for therapeutic applications.

ORGANISM(S): Xenopus laevis

PROVIDER: GSE269252 | GEO | 2024/07/01

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Understanding how distinct cell types arise from common multipotent progenitor cells is a major quest in stem cell biology. This knowledge will aid in the targeted differentiation and growth of stem cells, but also in the discovery of the basis of cellular plasticity and of how tissue programming can be controlled. The liver and pancreas share many aspects of their early development, being both specified in the same region of the endoderm, and, possibly, originating from a common progenitor. However, how pancreas versus liver cell fate decision occurs during embryogenesis and the molecular basis of this cellular plasticity are poorly understood. Here, we use RNA-Seq to define the molecular identity of liver and pancreas progenitors directly in mouse embryos and to investigate the mechanisms regulating the emergence of liver or pancreas as alternative fates from the endoderm. Progenitor cell-specific RNA was obtained from mouse Prox1-EGFP-labeled embryonic cells isolated by FACS at distinct developmental stages, before and after the onset of organogenesis. By integrating the temporal and spatial gene expression profiles, we found mutually exclusive signaling signatures in hepatic and pancreatic progenitors. Importantly, we identified the non-canonical Wnt pathway as a potential developmental regulator of the pancreas versus liver fate decision, being expressed in the foregut endoderm, before the cell fate choice is made, and then maintained in pancreas progenitors but absent in hepatic progenitors. Moreover, when assayed in Xenopus embryos, the non-canonical Wnt pathway is able to promote pancreatic fate and repress hepatic fate in the endoderm, suggesting an ancient mechanism for controlling pancreas versus liver fate choice. We expect that this knowledge will be key to formulate reprogramming strategies to convert adult hepatic cells into pancreatic cells as a cell-based therapeutic approach for diabetes. We performed sequencing-based expression profiling (RNA-Seq) of hepatic and pancreatic progenitors in the mouse at two distinct developmental stages.