Project description:The human liver is an essential multifunctional organ. The incidence of liver diseases is rising and there are limited treatment options. However, the cellular composition of the liver remains poorly understood. Here we performed single-cell RNA sequencing of about 10,000 cells from normal liver tissue from nine human donors to construct a human liver cell atlas. Our analysis identified previously unknown subtypes of endothelial cells, Kupffer cells, and hepatocytes, with transcriptome-wide zonation of some of these populations. We show that the EPCAM+ population is heterogeneous, comprising hepatocyte-biased and cholangiocyte populations as well as a TROP2int progenitor population with strong potential to form bipotent liver organoids. As a proof-of-principle, we used our atlas to unravel the phenotypic changes that occur in hepatocellular carcinoma cells and in human hepatocytes and liver endothelial cells engrafted into a mouse liver. Our human liver cell atlas provides a powerful resource to enable the discovery of previously unknown cell types in normal and diseased livers.
Project description:We perfomed single-cell RNA-sequnecing of around 10,000 cells from normal human liver tissue to construct a human liver cell atlas. We reveal previously unknown subtypes in different cell type compartments. We also use our normal liver cell atlas to infer perturbed phenoytpes of cells from HCC samples, human cells engrafted into a mouse liver and liver organoids.
Project description:Understanding the cellular constituents of the prostate is essential for identifying the cell of origin for prostate adenocarcinoma. Here, we describe a comprehensive single-cell atlas of the adult mouse prostate epithelium, which displays extensive heterogeneity. We observe distal lobe-specific luminal epithelial populations (LumA, LumD, LumL, and LumV), a proximally enriched luminal population (LumP) that is not lobe-specific, and a periurethral population (PrU) that shares both basal and luminal features. Functional analyses suggest that LumP and PrU cells have multipotent progenitor activity in organoid formation and tissue reconstitution assays. Furthermore, we show that mouse distal and proximal luminal cells are most similar to human acinar and ductal populations, that a PrU-like population is conserved between species, and that the mouse lateral prostate is most similar to the human peripheral zone. Our findings elucidate new prostate epithelial progenitors, and help resolve long-standing questions about anatomical relationships between the mouse and human prostate.
Project description:We generated a high-resolution cellular atlas of the healthy human liver by profiling the transcriptome of more than 25,000 individual liver cells using droplet-based RNA-sequencing. Recently published datasets and in situ hybridization were integrated to confirm, validate and locate newly identified cell populations. We identified, annotated and characterized a total of 23 cell subpopulations that represent the degree of heterogeneity of parenchymal (i.e. hepatocytes and cholangiocytes) and non-parenchymal liver cells (i.e. endothelial cells, stellate cells, macrophages and lymphoid cells). We successfully classified human hepatocytes and liver sinusoidal endothelial cells along the porto-central axis and for the first time reveal the existence of functionally specialized pericentral GPC3+ and periportal HHIP+ DBH+ hepatic stellate cells in the healthy human liver. Our study provides a description of the different cell compartments that enter into the composition of a healthy human liver and currently constitutes the biggest single-cell RNA sequencing dataset available on human healthy hepatocytes and hepatic stellate cells. We identified subsets of hepatic stellate cells characterized by distinct localization and physiological functions.
Project description:The large size and vascular accessibility of the laboratory rat (Rattus norvegicus) make it an ideal hepatic animal model for diseases that require surgical manipulation. Often, the disease susceptibility and outcomes of inflammatory pathologies vary significantly between strains. This study uses single-cell transcriptomics to better understand the complex cellular network of the rat liver, as well as to unravel the cellular and molecular sources of inter-strain hepatic variation. We generated single-cell and single-nucleus transcriptomic maps of the livers of healthy Dark Agouti and Lewis rat strains and developed a factor analysis-based bioinformatics analysis pipeline to study data covariates, such as strain and batch. Using this approach, we discovered transcriptomic variation within the hepatocyte and myeloid populations that underlie distinct cell states between rat strains. This finding will help provide a reference for future investigations on strain-dependent outcomes of surgical experiment models.
Project description:The human cerebral cortex depends for its normal development and size on a precisely controlled balance between self-renewal and differentiation of diverse neural progenitor cells. Specialized progenitors that are common in humans, but virtually absent in rodents, called â??outer radial gliaâ?? (ORG), have been suggested to be crucial to the evolutionary expansion of the human cortex. We combined cell type-specific sorting with transcriptome-wide RNA-sequencing to identify genes enriched in human ORG, including targets of the transcription factor Neurogenin, and previously uncharacterized, evolutionarily dynamic, long noncoding RNAs. Single-cell transcriptional profiling of human, ferret, and mouse progenitors showed that more human RGC co-express proneural Neurogenin targets than in ferret or mouse, suggesting greater self-renewal of neuronal lineage-committed progenitors in humans. Finally, we show that activating the Neurogenin pathway in ferret RGC promotes delamination and outward migration. Thus, we find that the abundance of human ORG is paralleled by increased transcriptional heterogeneity of cortical progenitors. Three biological replicates of human late mid-fetal cortex (18 to 19 weeks of gestation) were dissociated and immunolabeled. Apical and outer radial glial cells were purified by FACS and compared to an immunonegative population, predominantly neurons.