Project description:Mechanisms of epithelial renewal in the alveolar compartment remain incompletely understood. To this end, we aimed to characterize alveolar progenitors. Single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) analysis of the HTII-280 positive and HTII-280+ /EpCAM+populations from total 6 donors from periferal tissue was performed, and analysis revealed subclusters enriched for stem cell signature genes. We found that these alveolar progenitors in organoid culture in vitro show phenotypic lineage plasticity as they can yield alveolar or bronchial cell type progeny. The direction of the differentiation is dependent on the presence of the GSK-3β inhibitor, CHIR99021. By RNA-seq analysis of GSK-3 βknockdown organoids, we identify additional functional candidate target genes and pathways which contribute to alveolar differentiation independent of Wnt signaling
Project description:Mechanisms of epithelial renewal in the alveolar compartment remain incompletely understood. To this end, we aimed to characterize alveolar progenitors. Single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) analysis of the HTII-280+/EpCAM+ population from adult human lung revealed subclusters enriched for adult stem cell signature (ASCS) genes. We found that alveolar progenitors in organoid culture in vitro show phenotypic lineage plasticity as they can yield alveolar or bronchial cell-type progeny. The direction of the differentiation is dependent on the presence of the GSK-3β inhibitor, CHIR99021. By RNA-seq profiling of GSK-3β knockdown organoids we identified additional candidate target genes of the inhibitor, among others FOXM1 and EGF. This gives evidence of Wnt pathway independent regulatory mechanisms of alveolar specification. Following influenza A virus (IAV) infection organoids showed a similar response as lung tissue explants which confirms their suitability for studies of sequelae of pathogen-host interaction.
Project description:Lung injury activates potential stem cells or progenitors for alveolar repair and regeneration. However, the activation program and source of injury-induced facultative progenitors remain incompletely known. Here, we find that lung injury induces emergence of p63-expressing progenitors, which rapidly proliferate and differentiate into alveolar type-1 (AT1) and type-2 (AT2) cells. scRNA-seq analysis uncovers that a subset of p63+ progenitors exhibit two distinct parallele transient stages before differentiation into mature AT1 and AT2 cells, respectively. Dual recombinases-mediated sequential genetic tracing reveals that facultative p63+ progenitors originate from the distal airway secretory cells and subsequently regenerate alveoli. Functioanlly, secretory cell-specific knockout of p63 significantly impairs their contribution to alveolar epithelium during lung regeneration. Our study identified secretory cell-derived facultative p63+ progenitors that contribute to alveolar regeneration, indicating a potential therapeutic target for lung treatment after injuires.
Project description:During development of the human cerebral cortex, multipotent neural progenitors generate excitatory neurons and glial cells. This process is faithfully recapitulated in brain organoids. By using telencephalic brain organoids grown using a dual reporter cell line to isolate neural progenitors and neurons we generated a cell type and developmental stage-specific transcriptome dataset..
Project description:During development of the human cerebral cortex, multipotent neural progenitors generate excitatory neurons and glial cells. This process is faithfully recapitulated in brain organoids. By using telencephalic brain organoids grown using a dual reporter cell line to isolate neural progenitors and neurons we generated a cell type and developmental stage-specific ATAC-seq dataset.
Project description:The intrinsic ability to exhibit self-organizing morphogenetic properties in ex vivo culture may represent a general property of tissue stem cells. Here we show that single luminal stem/progenitor cells can generate prostate organoids in a three-dimensional culture system in the absence of stroma. Organoids generated from CARNs (castration-resistant Nkx3.1-expressing cells) or normal prostate epithelia exhibit tissue architecture containing luminal and basal cells, undergo long-term expansion in culture and exhibit functional androgen receptor signalling. Lineage-tracing demonstrates that luminal cells are favoured for organoid formation and generate basal cells in culture. Furthermore, tumour organoids can initiate from CARNs after oncogenic transformation and from mouse models of prostate cancer, and can facilitate analyses of drug response. Finally, we provide evidence supporting the feasibility of organoid studies of human prostate tissue. Our studies underscore the progenitor properties of luminal cells, and identify in vitro approaches for studying prostate biology.
Project description:During development of the human cerebral cortex, multipotent neural progenitors generate excitatory neurons and glial cells. Investigations of the transcriptome and epigenome have revealed important gene regulatory networks underlying this crucial developmental event. However, the post-transcriptional control of gene expression and protein abundance during human corticogenesis remains poorly understood. We addressed this issue by using a dual reporter cell line to isolate neural progenitors and neurons from the telencephalic brain organoid tissue and performed cell type and developmental stage-specific transcriptome and proteome analysis. Integrating the two datasets revealed temporal modules of gene expression during human corticogenesis, both at RNA and protein level. Our multiomics approach reveals novel posttranscriptional regulatory mechanisms crucial for fidelity of cortical development.