Project description:To improve the maturity and reduce the heterogeneity of iPSC-cardiomyocytes, we addressed the diversity of iPSC-cardiomyocytes by single-cell RNA sequencing and analyzed in detail about heterogeneity during cardiac maturation process.
Project description:Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) provide great opportunities for mechanistic dissection of human cardiac pathophysiology; however, hiPSC-CMs remain immature relative to the adult heart. To identify novel signaling pathways driving the maturation process during heart development, we analyzed published transcriptional and epigenetic datasets from hiPSC-CMs, prenatal and postnatal human hearts. These analyses revealed that several components of the MAPK and PI3K-AKT pathways are downregulated in the postnatal heart. Here, we show that dual inhibition of these pathways for only 5 days significantly enhances the maturation of day-30 hiPSC-CMs in many domains: hypertrophy, multinucleation, metabolism, t-tubule density, calcium handling, and electrophysiology, many equivalent to day-60 hiPSC-CMs. These data indicate that the MAPK/PI3K/AKT pathways are involved in cardiomyocyte maturation and provide proof-of-concept for the manipulation of key signaling pathways for optimal hiPSC-CM maturation, a critical aspect of faithful in vitro modeling of cardiac pathologies and subsequent drug discovery.
Project description:The mammalian heart undergoes maturation during postnatal life to meet the increased functional requirements of the adult. However, the key drivers of this process remain poorly defined. We developed as 96-well screening platform, using human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiac organoids, to determine the molecular requirements for in vitro cardiomyocyte maturation. Here, we describe gene expression changes resulting from culturing human cardiac organoids in standard cell culture conditions and under optimized maturation conditions. We assessed our maturation conditions by comparing transcriptional changes of human cardiac organoids to RNA isolated from human heart. Interesting, analysis of these data revealed that a switch to fatty acid oxidative metabolism is a key governor of cardiomyocyte maturation and mature cardiac organoids were refractory to mitogenic stimuli.
Project description:Heart maturation and remodelling during the foetal and early postnatal period are critical for proper survival and growth of the foetus, yet our knowledge of the molecular processes involved are lacking for many cardiac cell types. To gain a deeper understanding of the transcriptional dynamics of the heart during the perinatal period, we performed single-cell RNA-seq on E14.5, E16.5, E18.5, P0, P4 and P7 mouse hearts to establish a catalogue of 49,769 cells. Gene regulatory network and pathway activity analyses underscored that heart maturation is strongly associated with regulation of cell growth and proliferation via pathways such as TGFβ. We additionally identified a common, cell type-independent signature for imprinted genes over time. Surprisingly, bioinformatics analyses and confirmation with RNAscope confirmed that while lncRNA H19 expression decreased over time in multiple cardiac cell types, it remained stably expressed in endocardial cells between E14.5 and P7. This suggests a differential requirement for H19 in the endocardium, and points towards an endocardium-specific maturation process when compared to other cardiac cell types. We envision this dataset to serve as a resource for better understanding perinatal heart maturation at the transcriptomic level, and to help bridge the gap between early developmental and adult heart stages for single-cell transcriptomics.
Project description:Adipose-derived cells (ADCs) from white adipose tissue (WAT) are promising stem cell candidates due to large innate regenerative reserves and achievement of clinically meaningful cardiac regeneration. However, due to the heterogeneity of ADCs and unsolved molecular mechanism underpins of cardiac acquisition, the ADC-Cardiac transition efficiency remains low. Here, we found a population of ADCs reacted to leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and differentiated into functional beating cardiomyocyte-like cells. With single cells sequencing, we profiled 39,432 single cell transcriptomes at multiple time points throught the cardiac transition course. Combined with FACS, we identified three distinct pdgfra+ ADC populations that responded differently to the LIF signaling and transited to cardiomyocyte like cells. Dynamic trajectories derived from pseudotime analysis on ADCs navigate a trajectory with two branches that correspond to two alternative fate decisions. Analysis of starting branch revealed Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) signaling is the crucial event in initiation of myogenic program. The ending two branches represented activated myofibroblast and cardiomyocyte like cells. Collectively, our findings offer a high-resolution dissection of ADC heterogeneity and cell fate dynamics during ADCs-Cardiac transition, thus shed new insights into potential cardiac stem cells for future usage.
Project description:The liver is the largest metabolic organ in mammals to process most nutrients and cellular wastes, although its development and maturation in postnatal life is unclear. We performed single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) analysis focusing on postnatal development and maturation of murine liver. A total of 52,834 single cell transcriptomes, collected from the newborn to adult livers, were analyzed. We observed dramatic changes in cellular compositions during liver postnatal development. We characterized the process of hepatocytes and sinusoidal endothelial cell zonation establishment at single cell resolution. Furthermore, trajectory and gene regulatory analyses showed development of circadian clock in early liver as well as response of several critical metabolic pathways in order to adapt to the abrupt environmental changes at birth and in the postnatal life. Finally, we identified a special type of macrophages, enriched at postnatal day 7, with hybrid phenotype of both macrophage and endothelial cells. Cell-cell interaction analysis indicated this group of cells involved in regulation of liver sinusoidal vascularization and Treg cell activity. This study provides a comprehensive blueprint for further dissection of liver functions and diseases.
Project description:We combined the Single-probe single cell MS(SCMS) experimental technique with a bioinformatics software package, SinCHet-MS (Single Cell Heterogeneity for Mass Spectrometry), to characterize changes of tumor heterogeneity, quantify cell subpopulations, and prioritize the metabolite biomarkers of each subpopulation.
Project description:Single-cell RNA sequencing was performed on embryonic Drosophila heart cells. Analysis of single-cell RNA sequence (scRNA-seq) data at timepoints prior to migration of cardiac progenitor cells through to heart tube closure (embryonic stages 13, 14-early, 14-late, 15 and 16) revealed several interesting findings. We found specification of cardiac cell types takes place early, before stage 13, with biggest changes in transcriptomic profiles detected once cells had settled at the midline for further cardioblast maturation. Throughout development, our data identified multiple cell types, covering cardioblasts and five types of pericardial cells including a neural cardiac cell type. The scRNA-seq data further revealed a combination of first and second heart fields during heart development in fly. Further, we uncovered new cell type-specific markers discerning the different cardiac cell types. And we identified signaling pathways key to heart cell maturation, which are conserved from fly to human.