1
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Church SH, Mah JL, Dunn CW. Integrating phylogenies into single-cell RNA sequencing analysis allows comparisons across species, genes, and cells. PLoS Biol 2024; 22:e3002633. [PMID: 38787797 PMCID: PMC11125556 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002633] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Comparisons of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data across species can reveal links between cellular gene expression and the evolution of cell functions, features, and phenotypes. These comparisons evoke evolutionary histories, as depicted by phylogenetic trees, that define relationships between species, genes, and cells. This Essay considers each of these in turn, laying out challenges and solutions derived from a phylogenetic comparative approach and relating these solutions to previously proposed methods for the pairwise alignment of cellular dimensional maps. This Essay contends that species trees, gene trees, cell phylogenies, and cell lineages can all be reconciled as descriptions of the same concept-the tree of cellular life. By integrating phylogenetic approaches into scRNA-seq analyses, challenges for building informed comparisons across species can be overcome, and hypotheses about gene and cell evolution can be robustly tested.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel H. Church
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Jasmine L. Mah
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Casey W. Dunn
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
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2
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Wang K, Hou L, Wang X, Zhai X, Lu Z, Zi Z, Zhai W, He X, Curtis C, Zhou D, Hu Z. PhyloVelo enhances transcriptomic velocity field mapping using monotonically expressed genes. Nat Biotechnol 2024; 42:778-789. [PMID: 37524958 DOI: 10.1038/s41587-023-01887-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2022] [Accepted: 06/28/2023] [Indexed: 08/02/2023]
Abstract
Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a powerful approach for studying cellular differentiation, but accurately tracking cell fate transitions can be challenging, especially in disease conditions. Here we introduce PhyloVelo, a computational framework that estimates the velocity of transcriptomic dynamics by using monotonically expressed genes (MEGs) or genes with expression patterns that either increase or decrease, but do not cycle, through phylogenetic time. Through integration of scRNA-seq data with lineage information, PhyloVelo identifies MEGs and reconstructs a transcriptomic velocity field. We validate PhyloVelo using simulated data and Caenorhabditis elegans ground truth data, successfully recovering linear, bifurcated and convergent differentiations. Applying PhyloVelo to seven lineage-traced scRNA-seq datasets, generated using CRISPR-Cas9 editing, lentiviral barcoding or immune repertoire profiling, demonstrates its high accuracy and robustness in inferring complex lineage trajectories while outperforming RNA velocity. Additionally, we discovered that MEGs across tissues and organisms share similar functions in translation and ribosome biogenesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kun Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
- School of Mathematical Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
| | - Liangzhen Hou
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau, China
| | - Xin Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
| | - Xiangwei Zhai
- MOE Key Laboratory of Gene Function and Regulation, State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zhaolian Lu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
| | - Zhike Zi
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
| | - Weiwei Zhai
- CAS Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Center for Excellence in Animal Evolution and Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
| | - Xionglei He
- MOE Key Laboratory of Gene Function and Regulation, State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Christina Curtis
- Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
- Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Da Zhou
- School of Mathematical Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
- National Institute for Data Science in Health and Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
| | - Zheng Hu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
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3
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Maizels RJ. A dynamical perspective: moving towards mechanism in single-cell transcriptomics. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2024; 379:20230049. [PMID: 38432314 PMCID: PMC10909508 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2023] [Accepted: 10/31/2023] [Indexed: 03/05/2024] Open
Abstract
As the field of single-cell transcriptomics matures, research is shifting focus from phenomenological descriptions of cellular phenotypes to a mechanistic understanding of the gene regulation underneath. This perspective considers the value of capturing dynamical information at single-cell resolution for gaining mechanistic insight; reviews the available technologies for recording and inferring temporal information in single cells; and explores whether better dynamical resolution is sufficient to adequately capture the causal relationships driving complex biological systems. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Causes and consequences of stochastic processes in development and disease'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rory J. Maizels
- The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London NW1 1AT, UK
- University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
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4
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Álvarez-Campos P, García-Castro H, Emili E, Pérez-Posada A, Del Olmo I, Peron S, Salamanca-Díaz DA, Mason V, Metzger B, Bely AE, Kenny NJ, Özpolat BD, Solana J. Annelid adult cell type diversity and their pluripotent cellular origins. Nat Commun 2024; 15:3194. [PMID: 38609365 PMCID: PMC11014941 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47401-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2023] [Accepted: 03/27/2024] [Indexed: 04/14/2024] Open
Abstract
Many annelids can regenerate missing body parts or reproduce asexually, generating all cell types in adult stages. However, the putative adult stem cell populations involved in these processes, and the diversity of cell types generated by them, are still unknown. To address this, we recover 75,218 single cell transcriptomes of the highly regenerative and asexually-reproducing annelid Pristina leidyi. Our results uncover a rich cell type diversity including annelid specific types as well as novel types. Moreover, we characterise transcription factors and gene networks that are expressed specifically in these populations. Finally, we uncover a broadly abundant cluster of putative stem cells with a pluripotent signature. This population expresses well-known stem cell markers such as vasa, piwi and nanos homologues, but also shows heterogeneous expression of differentiated cell markers and their transcription factors. We find conserved expression of pluripotency regulators, including multiple chromatin remodelling and epigenetic factors, in piwi+ cells. Finally, lineage reconstruction analyses reveal computational differentiation trajectories from piwi+ cells to diverse adult types. Our data reveal the cell type diversity of adult annelids by single cell transcriptomics and suggest that a piwi+ cell population with a pluripotent stem cell signature is associated with adult cell type differentiation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patricia Álvarez-Campos
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.
- Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM) & Departamento de Biología (Zoología), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Helena García-Castro
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Elena Emili
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
| | - Alberto Pérez-Posada
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Irene Del Olmo
- Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM) & Departamento de Biología (Zoología), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Sophie Peron
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - David A Salamanca-Díaz
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Vincent Mason
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
| | - Bria Metzger
- Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, MA, 05432, USA
- Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis. 1 Brookings Dr. Saint Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63130, USA
| | - Alexandra E Bely
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA
| | - Nathan J Kenny
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, Aotearoa, New Zealand
| | - B Duygu Özpolat
- Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, MA, 05432, USA.
- Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis. 1 Brookings Dr. Saint Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63130, USA.
| | - Jordi Solana
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.
- Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
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5
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Qu R, Cheng X, Sefik E, Stanley Iii JS, Landa B, Strino F, Platt S, Garritano J, Odell ID, Coifman R, Flavell RA, Myung P, Kluger Y. Gene trajectory inference for single-cell data by optimal transport metrics. Nat Biotechnol 2024:10.1038/s41587-024-02186-3. [PMID: 38580861 DOI: 10.1038/s41587-024-02186-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2022] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 04/07/2024]
Abstract
Single-cell RNA sequencing has been widely used to investigate cell state transitions and gene dynamics of biological processes. Current strategies to infer the sequential dynamics of genes in a process typically rely on constructing cell pseudotime through cell trajectory inference. However, the presence of concurrent gene processes in the same group of cells and technical noise can obscure the true progression of the processes studied. To address this challenge, we present GeneTrajectory, an approach that identifies trajectories of genes rather than trajectories of cells. Specifically, optimal transport distances are calculated between gene distributions across the cell-cell graph to extract gene programs and define their gene pseudotemporal order. Here we demonstrate that GeneTrajectory accurately extracts progressive gene dynamics in myeloid lineage maturation. Moreover, we show that GeneTrajectory deconvolves key gene programs underlying mouse skin hair follicle dermal condensate differentiation that could not be resolved by cell trajectory approaches. GeneTrajectory facilitates the discovery of gene programs that control the changes and activities of biological processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rihao Qu
- Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
- Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Xiuyuan Cheng
- Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Esen Sefik
- Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
| | | | - Boris Landa
- Program in Applied Mathematics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | | | - Sarah Platt
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
- Department of Dermatology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - James Garritano
- Program in Applied Mathematics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Ian D Odell
- Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
- Department of Dermatology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Ronald Coifman
- Program in Applied Mathematics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
- Department of Mathematics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Richard A Flavell
- Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Peggy Myung
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
- Department of Dermatology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Yuval Kluger
- Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
- Program in Applied Mathematics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
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6
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Ranek JS, Stallaert W, Milner JJ, Redick M, Wolff SC, Beltran AS, Stanley N, Purvis JE. DELVE: feature selection for preserving biological trajectories in single-cell data. Nat Commun 2024; 15:2765. [PMID: 38553455 PMCID: PMC10980758 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46773-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2023] [Accepted: 03/07/2024] [Indexed: 04/02/2024] Open
Abstract
Single-cell technologies can measure the expression of thousands of molecular features in individual cells undergoing dynamic biological processes. While examining cells along a computationally-ordered pseudotime trajectory can reveal how changes in gene or protein expression impact cell fate, identifying such dynamic features is challenging due to the inherent noise in single-cell data. Here, we present DELVE, an unsupervised feature selection method for identifying a representative subset of molecular features which robustly recapitulate cellular trajectories. In contrast to previous work, DELVE uses a bottom-up approach to mitigate the effects of confounding sources of variation, and instead models cell states from dynamic gene or protein modules based on core regulatory complexes. Using simulations, single-cell RNA sequencing, and iterative immunofluorescence imaging data in the context of cell cycle and cellular differentiation, we demonstrate how DELVE selects features that better define cell-types and cell-type transitions. DELVE is available as an open-source python package: https://github.com/jranek/delve .
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Affiliation(s)
- Jolene S Ranek
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Wayne Stallaert
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - J Justin Milner
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Margaret Redick
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Samuel C Wolff
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Adriana S Beltran
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Human Pluripotent Cell Core, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Natalie Stanley
- Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
- Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
| | - Jeremy E Purvis
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
- Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
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7
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Grones C, Eekhout T, Shi D, Neumann M, Berg LS, Ke Y, Shahan R, Cox KL, Gomez-Cano F, Nelissen H, Lohmann JU, Giacomello S, Martin OC, Cole B, Wang JW, Kaufmann K, Raissig MT, Palfalvi G, Greb T, Libault M, De Rybel B. Best practices for the execution, analysis, and data storage of plant single-cell/nucleus transcriptomics. THE PLANT CELL 2024; 36:812-828. [PMID: 38231860 PMCID: PMC10980355 DOI: 10.1093/plcell/koae003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2023] [Revised: 10/17/2023] [Accepted: 10/24/2023] [Indexed: 01/19/2024]
Abstract
Single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-sequencing technologies capture the expression of plant genes at an unprecedented resolution. Therefore, these technologies are gaining traction in plant molecular and developmental biology for elucidating the transcriptional changes across cell types in a specific tissue or organ, upon treatments, in response to biotic and abiotic stresses, or between genotypes. Despite the rapidly accelerating use of these technologies, collective and standardized experimental and analytical procedures to support the acquisition of high-quality data sets are still missing. In this commentary, we discuss common challenges associated with the use of single-cell transcriptomics in plants and propose general guidelines to improve reproducibility, quality, comparability, and interpretation and to make the data readily available to the community in this fast-developing field of research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carolin Grones
- Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent 9052, Belgium
- VIB Centre for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent 9052, Belgium
| | - Thomas Eekhout
- Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent 9052, Belgium
- VIB Centre for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent 9052, Belgium
- VIB Single Cell Core Facility, Ghent 9052, Belgium
| | - Dongbo Shi
- Centre for Organismal Studies, Heidelberg University, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
- Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
| | - Manuel Neumann
- Institute of Biology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Lea S Berg
- Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Yuji Ke
- Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent 9052, Belgium
- VIB Centre for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent 9052, Belgium
| | - Rachel Shahan
- Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
| | - Kevin L Cox
- Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO 63132, USA
| | - Fabio Gomez-Cano
- Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Hilde Nelissen
- Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent 9052, Belgium
- VIB Centre for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent 9052, Belgium
| | - Jan U Lohmann
- Centre for Organismal Studies, Heidelberg University, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Stefania Giacomello
- SciLifeLab, Department of Gene Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 17165 Solna, Sweden
| | - Olivier C Martin
- Universities of Paris-Saclay, Paris-Cité and Evry, CNRS, INRAE, Institute of Plant Sciences Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette 91192, France
| | - Benjamin Cole
- DOE-Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Jia-Wei Wang
- National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences (CEMPS), Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology (SIPPE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai 200032, China
| | - Kerstin Kaufmann
- Institute of Biology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Michael T Raissig
- Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Gergo Palfalvi
- Department of Comparative Development and Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany
| | - Thomas Greb
- Centre for Organismal Studies, Heidelberg University, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Marc Libault
- Division of Plant Science and Technology, Interdisciplinary Plant Group, College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65201, USA
| | - Bert De Rybel
- Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent 9052, Belgium
- VIB Centre for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent 9052, Belgium
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8
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Lin Y, Wu TY, Chen X, Wan S, Chao B, Xin J, Yang JYH, Wong WH, Wang YXR. Data integration and inference of gene regulation using single-cell temporal multimodal data with scTIE. Genome Res 2024; 34:119-133. [PMID: 38190633 PMCID: PMC10903952 DOI: 10.1101/gr.277960.123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 01/10/2024]
Abstract
Single-cell technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to dissect gene regulatory mechanisms in context-specific ways. Although there are computational methods for extracting gene regulatory relationships from scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq data, the data integration problem, essential for accurate cell type identification, has been mostly treated as a standalone challenge. Here we present scTIE, a unified method that integrates temporal multimodal data and infers regulatory relationships predictive of cellular state changes. scTIE uses an autoencoder to embed cells from all time points into a common space by using iterative optimal transport, followed by extracting interpretable information to predict cell trajectories. Using a variety of synthetic and real temporal multimodal data sets, we show scTIE achieves effective data integration while preserving more biological signals than existing methods, particularly in the presence of batch effects and noise. Furthermore, on the exemplar multiome data set we generated from differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells over time, we show scTIE captures regulatory elements highly predictive of cell transition probabilities, providing new potentials to understand the regulatory landscape driving developmental processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yingxin Lin
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
- Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
- Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited (D24H), Science Park, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China
| | - Tung-Yu Wu
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4020, USA
| | - Xi Chen
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4020, USA
| | - Sheng Wan
- Institute of Electronics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan
| | - Brian Chao
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-9505, USA
| | - Jingxue Xin
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4020, USA
| | - Jean Y H Yang
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
- Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
- Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited (D24H), Science Park, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China
| | - Wing H Wong
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4020, USA;
- Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-5464, USA
- Bio-X Program, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Y X Rachel Wang
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia;
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9
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Imaz-Rosshandler I, Rode C, Guibentif C, Harland LTG, Ton MLN, Dhapola P, Keitley D, Argelaguet R, Calero-Nieto FJ, Nichols J, Marioni JC, de Bruijn MFTR, Göttgens B. Tracking early mammalian organogenesis - prediction and validation of differentiation trajectories at whole organism scale. Development 2024; 151:dev201867. [PMID: 37982461 PMCID: PMC10906099 DOI: 10.1242/dev.201867] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2023] [Accepted: 10/30/2023] [Indexed: 11/21/2023]
Abstract
Early organogenesis represents a key step in animal development, during which pluripotent cells diversify to initiate organ formation. Here, we sampled 300,000 single-cell transcriptomes from mouse embryos between E8.5 and E9.5 in 6-h intervals and combined this new dataset with our previous atlas (E6.5-E8.5) to produce a densely sampled timecourse of >400,000 cells from early gastrulation to organogenesis. Computational lineage reconstruction identified complex waves of blood and endothelial development, including a new programme for somite-derived endothelium. We also dissected the E7.5 primitive streak into four adjacent regions, performed scRNA-seq and predicted cell fates computationally. Finally, we defined developmental state/fate relationships by combining orthotopic grafting, microscopic analysis and scRNA-seq to transcriptionally determine cell fates of grafted primitive streak regions after 24 h of in vitro embryo culture. Experimentally determined fate outcomes were in good agreement with computationally predicted fates, demonstrating how classical grafting experiments can be revisited to establish high-resolution cell state/fate relationships. Such interdisciplinary approaches will benefit future studies in developmental biology and guide the in vitro production of cells for organ regeneration and repair.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ivan Imaz-Rosshandler
- Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0RE, UK
- Wellcome-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0AW, UK
- MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge CB2 0QH, UK
| | - Christina Rode
- MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK
| | - Carolina Guibentif
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Gothenburg, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
| | - Luke T. G. Harland
- Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0RE, UK
- Wellcome-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0AW, UK
| | - Mai-Linh N. Ton
- Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0RE, UK
- Wellcome-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0AW, UK
| | - Parashar Dhapola
- Division of Molecular Hematology, Lund Stem Cell Center, Lund University, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
| | - Daniel Keitley
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK
| | - Ricard Argelaguet
- Epigenetics Programme, Babraham Institute, Cambridge CB22 3AT, UK
- Altos Labs Cambridge Institute, Granta Park, Cambridge CB21 6GP, UK
| | - Fernando J. Calero-Nieto
- Wellcome-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0AW, UK
| | - Jennifer Nichols
- Wellcome-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0AW, UK
| | - John C. Marioni
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Saffron Walden CB10 1SA, UK
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Saffron Walden CB10 1SA, UK
- Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0RE, UK
| | - Marella F. T. R. de Bruijn
- MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK
| | - Berthold Göttgens
- Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0RE, UK
- Wellcome-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0AW, UK
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10
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Kyaw W, Chai RC, Khoo WH, Goldstein LD, Croucher PI, Murray JM, Phan TG. ENTRAIN: integrating trajectory inference and gene regulatory networks with spatial data to co-localize the receptor-ligand interactions that specify cell fate. Bioinformatics 2023; 39:btad765. [PMID: 38113422 PMCID: PMC10752580 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btad765] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2023] [Revised: 12/07/2023] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 12/21/2023] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION Cell fate is commonly studied by profiling the gene expression of single cells to infer developmental trajectories based on expression similarity, RNA velocity, or statistical mechanical properties. However, current approaches do not recover microenvironmental signals from the cellular niche that drive a differentiation trajectory. RESULTS We resolve this with environment-aware trajectory inference (ENTRAIN), a computational method that integrates trajectory inference methods with ligand-receptor pair gene regulatory networks to identify extracellular signals and evaluate their relative contribution towards a differentiation trajectory. The output from ENTRAIN can be superimposed on spatial data to co-localize cells and molecules in space and time to map cell fate potentials to cell-cell interactions. We validate and benchmark our approach on single-cell bone marrow and spatially resolved embryonic neurogenesis datasets to identify known and novel environmental drivers of cellular differentiation. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION ENTRAIN is available as a public package at https://github.com/theimagelab/entrain and can be used on both single-cell and spatially resolved datasets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wunna Kyaw
- Precision Immunology Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
- St Vincent’s Healthcare Clinical Campus, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
| | - Ryan C Chai
- St Vincent’s Healthcare Clinical Campus, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
- Cancer Plasticity and Dormancy Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010Australia
| | - Weng Hua Khoo
- St Vincent’s Healthcare Clinical Campus, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
- Cancer Plasticity and Dormancy Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010Australia
| | - Leonard D Goldstein
- St Vincent’s Healthcare Clinical Campus, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
- Data Science Platform, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
| | - Peter I Croucher
- St Vincent’s Healthcare Clinical Campus, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
- Cancer Plasticity and Dormancy Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010Australia
| | - John M Murray
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Science, UNSW Sydney, Kensington, NSW 2033, Australia
| | - Tri Giang Phan
- Precision Immunology Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
- St Vincent’s Healthcare Clinical Campus, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia
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11
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Zhang M, Chen Y, Yu D, Zhong W, Zhang J, Ma P. Elucidating dynamic cell lineages and gene networks in time-course single cell differentiation. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE LIFE SCIENCES 2023; 3:100068. [PMID: 37426065 PMCID: PMC10328540 DOI: 10.1016/j.ailsci.2023.100068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/11/2023]
Abstract
Single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technologies provide researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to exploit cell heterogeneity. For example, the sequenced cells belong to various cell lineages, which may have different cell fates in stem and progenitor cells. Those cells may differentiate into various mature cell types in a cell differentiation process. To trace the behavior of cell differentiation, researchers reconstruct cell lineages and predict cell fates by ordering cells chronologically into a trajectory with a pseudo-time. However, in scRNA-seq experiments, there are no cell-to-cell correspondences along with the time to reconstruct the cell lineages, which creates a significant challenge for cell lineage tracing and cell fate prediction. Therefore, methods that can accurately reconstruct the dynamic cell lineages and predict cell fates are highly desirable. In this article, we develop an innovative machine-learning framework called Cell Smoothing Transformation (CellST) to elucidate the dynamic cell fate paths and construct gene networks in cell differentiation processes. Unlike the existing methods that construct one single bulk cell trajectory, CellST builds cell trajectories and tracks behaviors for each individual cell. Additionally, CellST can predict cell fates even for less frequent cell types. Based on the individual cell fate trajectories, CellST can further construct dynamic gene networks to model gene-gene relationships along the cell differentiation process and discover critical genes that potentially regulate cells into various mature cell types.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Yongkai Chen
- Department of Statistics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United Stated
| | - Dingyi Yu
- Department of Industrial Engineering, Center for Statistical Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Wenxuan Zhong
- Department of Statistics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United Stated
| | - Jingyi Zhang
- Department of Industrial Engineering, Center for Statistical Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Ping Ma
- Department of Statistics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United Stated
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12
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Silkwood K, Dollinger E, Gervin J, Atwood S, Nie Q, Lander AD. Leveraging gene correlations in single cell transcriptomic data. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.03.14.532643. [PMID: 36993765 PMCID: PMC10055147 DOI: 10.1101/2023.03.14.532643] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Many approaches have been developed to overcome technical noise in single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNAseq). As researchers dig deeper into data-looking for rare cell types, subtleties of cell states, and details of gene regulatory networks-there is a growing need for algorithms with controllable accuracy and fewer ad hoc parameters and thresholds. Impeding this goal is the fact that an appropriate null distribution for scRNAseq cannot simply be extracted from data when ground truth about biological variation is unknown (i.e., usually). RESULTS We approach this problem analytically, assuming that scRNAseq data reflect only cell heterogeneity (what we seek to characterize), transcriptional noise (temporal fluctuations randomly distributed across cells), and sampling error (i.e., Poisson noise). We analyze scRNAseq data without normalization-a step that skews distributions, particularly for sparse data-and calculate p-values associated with key statistics. We develop an improved method for selecting features for cell clustering and identifying gene-gene correlations, both positive and negative. Using simulated data, we show that this method, which we call BigSur (Basic Informatics and Gene Statistics from Unnormalized Reads), captures even weak yet significant correlation structures in scRNAseq data. Applying BigSur to data from a clonal human melanoma cell line, we identify thousands of correlations that, when clustered without supervision into gene communities, align with known cellular components and biological processes, and highlight potentially novel cell biological relationships. CONCLUSIONS New insights into functionally relevant gene regulatory networks can be obtained using a statistically grounded approach to the identification of gene-gene correlations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kai Silkwood
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
- Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
| | - Emmanuel Dollinger
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
- Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
- Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
| | - Josh Gervin
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
- Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
| | - Scott Atwood
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
- Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
| | - Qing Nie
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
- Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
- Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
| | - Arthur D. Lander
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
- Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA
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13
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Shojaee A, Huang SSC. Robust discovery of gene regulatory networks from single-cell gene expression data by Causal Inference Using Composition of Transactions. Brief Bioinform 2023; 24:bbad370. [PMID: 37897702 PMCID: PMC10612495 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbad370] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2023] [Revised: 09/06/2023] [Accepted: 09/29/2023] [Indexed: 10/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) drive organism structure and functions, so the discovery and characterization of GRNs is a major goal in biological research. However, accurate identification of causal regulatory connections and inference of GRNs using gene expression datasets, more recently from single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq), has been challenging. Here we employ the innovative method of Causal Inference Using Composition of Transactions (CICT) to uncover GRNs from scRNA-seq data. The basis of CICT is that if all gene expressions were random, a non-random regulatory gene should induce its targets at levels different from the background random process, resulting in distinct patterns in the whole relevance network of gene-gene associations. CICT proposes novel network features derived from a relevance network, which enable any machine learning algorithm to predict causal regulatory edges and infer GRNs. We evaluated CICT using simulated and experimental scRNA-seq data in a well-established benchmarking pipeline and showed that CICT outperformed existing network inference methods representing diverse approaches with many-fold higher accuracy. Furthermore, we demonstrated that GRN inference with CICT was robust to different levels of sparsity in scRNA-seq data, the characteristics of data and ground truth, the choice of association measure and the complexity of the supervised machine learning algorithm. Our results suggest aiming at directly predicting causality to recover regulatory relationships in complex biological networks substantially improves accuracy in GRN inference.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abbas Shojaee
- Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
| | - Shao-shan Carol Huang
- Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
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14
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DeMeo B, Berger B. SCA: recovering single-cell heterogeneity through information-based dimensionality reduction. Genome Biol 2023; 24:195. [PMID: 37626411 PMCID: PMC10464206 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-02998-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/07/2022] [Accepted: 06/28/2023] [Indexed: 08/27/2023] Open
Abstract
Dimensionality reduction summarizes the complex transcriptomic landscape of single-cell datasets for downstream analyses. Current approaches favor large cellular populations defined by many genes, at the expense of smaller and more subtly defined populations. Here, we present surprisal component analysis (SCA), a technique that newly leverages the information-theoretic notion of surprisal for dimensionality reduction to promote more meaningful signal extraction. For example, SCA uncovers clinically important cytotoxic T-cell subpopulations that are indistinguishable using existing pipelines. We also demonstrate that SCA substantially improves downstream imputation. SCA's efficient information-theoretic paradigm has broad applications to the study of complex biological tissues in health and disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin DeMeo
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, 02139, MA, USA
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, MA, USA
- Department of Mathematics, MIT, Cambridge, 02139, MA, USA
| | - Bonnie Berger
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, 02139, MA, USA.
- Department of Mathematics, MIT, Cambridge, 02139, MA, USA.
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15
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Flynn E, Almonte-Loya A, Fragiadakis GK. Single-Cell Multiomics. Annu Rev Biomed Data Sci 2023; 6:313-337. [PMID: 37159875 PMCID: PMC11146013 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-biodatasci-020422-050645] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
Single-cell RNA sequencing methods have led to improved understanding of the heterogeneity and transcriptomic states present in complex biological systems. Recently, the development of novel single-cell technologies for assaying additional modalities, specifically genomic, epigenomic, proteomic, and spatial data, allows for unprecedented insight into cellular biology. While certain technologies collect multiple measurements from the same cells simultaneously, even when modalities are separately assayed in different cells, we can apply novel computational methods to integrate these data. The application of computational integration methods to multimodal paired and unpaired data results in rich information about the identities of the cells present and the interactions between different levels of biology, such as between genetic variation and transcription. In this review, we both discuss the single-cell technologies for measuring these modalities and describe and characterize a variety of computational integration methods for combining the resulting data to leverage multimodal information toward greater biological insight.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily Flynn
- CoLabs, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA;
| | - Ana Almonte-Loya
- CoLabs, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA;
- Biomedical Informatics Program, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
| | - Gabriela K Fragiadakis
- CoLabs, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA;
- Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
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16
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Orrapin S, Thongkumkoon P, Udomruk S, Moonmuang S, Sutthitthasakul S, Yongpitakwattana P, Pruksakorn D, Chaiyawat P. Deciphering the Biology of Circulating Tumor Cells through Single-Cell RNA Sequencing: Implications for Precision Medicine in Cancer. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:12337. [PMID: 37569711 PMCID: PMC10418766 DOI: 10.3390/ijms241512337] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2023] [Revised: 07/25/2023] [Accepted: 07/27/2023] [Indexed: 08/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) hold unique biological characteristics that directly involve them in hematogenous dissemination. Studying CTCs systematically is technically challenging due to their extreme rarity and heterogeneity and the lack of specific markers to specify metastasis-initiating CTCs. With cutting-edge technology, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) provides insights into the biology of metastatic processes driven by CTCs. Transcriptomics analysis of single CTCs can decipher tumor heterogeneity and phenotypic plasticity for exploring promising novel therapeutic targets. The integrated approach provides a perspective on the mechanisms underlying tumor development and interrogates CTCs interactions with other blood cell types, particularly those of the immune system. This review aims to comprehensively describe the current study on CTC transcriptomic analysis through scRNA-seq technology. We emphasize the workflow for scRNA-seq analysis of CTCs, including enrichment, single cell isolation, and bioinformatic tools applied for this purpose. Furthermore, we elucidated the translational knowledge from the transcriptomic profile of individual CTCs and the biology of cancer metastasis for developing effective therapeutics through targeting key pathways in CTCs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Santhasiri Orrapin
- Center of Multidisciplinary Technology for Advanced Medicine (CMUTEAM), Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; (S.O.); (P.T.); (S.U.); (S.M.); (S.S.); (P.Y.); (D.P.)
| | - Patcharawadee Thongkumkoon
- Center of Multidisciplinary Technology for Advanced Medicine (CMUTEAM), Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; (S.O.); (P.T.); (S.U.); (S.M.); (S.S.); (P.Y.); (D.P.)
| | - Sasimol Udomruk
- Center of Multidisciplinary Technology for Advanced Medicine (CMUTEAM), Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; (S.O.); (P.T.); (S.U.); (S.M.); (S.S.); (P.Y.); (D.P.)
- Musculoskeletal Science and Translational Research (MSTR) Center, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
| | - Sutpirat Moonmuang
- Center of Multidisciplinary Technology for Advanced Medicine (CMUTEAM), Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; (S.O.); (P.T.); (S.U.); (S.M.); (S.S.); (P.Y.); (D.P.)
| | - Songphon Sutthitthasakul
- Center of Multidisciplinary Technology for Advanced Medicine (CMUTEAM), Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; (S.O.); (P.T.); (S.U.); (S.M.); (S.S.); (P.Y.); (D.P.)
| | - Petlada Yongpitakwattana
- Center of Multidisciplinary Technology for Advanced Medicine (CMUTEAM), Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; (S.O.); (P.T.); (S.U.); (S.M.); (S.S.); (P.Y.); (D.P.)
| | - Dumnoensun Pruksakorn
- Center of Multidisciplinary Technology for Advanced Medicine (CMUTEAM), Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; (S.O.); (P.T.); (S.U.); (S.M.); (S.S.); (P.Y.); (D.P.)
- Musculoskeletal Science and Translational Research (MSTR) Center, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
- Department of Orthopedics, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
| | - Parunya Chaiyawat
- Center of Multidisciplinary Technology for Advanced Medicine (CMUTEAM), Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; (S.O.); (P.T.); (S.U.); (S.M.); (S.S.); (P.Y.); (D.P.)
- Musculoskeletal Science and Translational Research (MSTR) Center, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
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17
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Mayshar Y, Raz O, Cheng S, Ben-Yair R, Hadas R, Reines N, Mittnenzweig M, Ben-Kiki O, Lifshitz A, Tanay A, Stelzer Y. Time-aligned hourglass gastrulation models in rabbit and mouse. Cell 2023; 186:2610-2627.e18. [PMID: 37209682 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.04.037] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2022] [Revised: 03/07/2023] [Accepted: 04/26/2023] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
The hourglass model describes the convergence of species within the same phylum to a similar body plan during development; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon in mammals remain poorly described. Here, we compare rabbit and mouse time-resolved differentiation trajectories to revisit this model at single-cell resolution. We modeled gastrulation dynamics using hundreds of embryos sampled between gestation days 6.0 and 8.5 and compared the species using a framework for time-resolved single-cell differentiation-flows analysis. We find convergence toward similar cell-state compositions at E7.5, supported by the quantitatively conserved expression of 76 transcription factors, despite divergence in surrounding trophoblast and hypoblast signaling. However, we observed noticeable changes in specification timing of some lineages and divergence of primordial germ cell programs, which in the rabbit do not activate mesoderm genes. Comparative analysis of temporal differentiation models provides a basis for studying the evolution of gastrulation dynamics across mammals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yoav Mayshar
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Ofir Raz
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Saifeng Cheng
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Raz Ben-Yair
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Ron Hadas
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Netta Reines
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Markus Mittnenzweig
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Oren Ben-Kiki
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Aviezer Lifshitz
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Amos Tanay
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
| | - Yonatan Stelzer
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
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18
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Lin Y, Wu TY, Chen X, Wan S, Chao B, Xin J, Yang JY, Wong WH, Wang YXR. scTIE: data integration and inference of gene regulation using single-cell temporal multimodal data. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.05.18.541381. [PMID: 37292801 PMCID: PMC10245711 DOI: 10.1101/2023.05.18.541381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Single-cell technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to dissect gene regulatory mechanisms in context-specific ways. Although there are computational methods for extracting gene regulatory relationships from scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq data, the data integration problem, essential for accurate cell type identification, has been mostly treated as a standalone challenge. Here we present scTIE, a unified method that integrates temporal multimodal data and infers regulatory relationships predictive of cellular state changes. scTIE uses an autoencoder to embed cells from all time points into a common space using iterative optimal transport, followed by extracting interpretable information to predict cell trajectories. Using a variety of synthetic and real temporal multimodal datasets, we demonstrate scTIE achieves effective data integration while preserving more biological signals than existing methods, particularly in the presence of batch effects and noise. Furthermore, on the exemplar multiome dataset we generated from differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells over time, we demonstrate scTIE captures regulatory elements highly predictive of cell transition probabilities, providing new potentials to understand the regulatory landscape driving developmental processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yingxin Lin
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited (D24H), Science Park, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Tung-Yu Wu
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, CA, USA
| | - Xi Chen
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, CA, USA
| | - Sheng Wan
- Institute of Electronics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
| | - Brian Chao
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, CA, USA
| | - Jingxue Xin
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, CA, USA
| | - Jean Y.H. Yang
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited (D24H), Science Park, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Wing H. Wong
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, CA, USA
- Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University, CA, USA
- Bio-X Program, Stanford University, CA, USA
| | - Y. X. Rachel Wang
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
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19
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Ranek JS, Stallaert W, Milner J, Stanley N, Purvis JE. Feature selection for preserving biological trajectories in single-cell data. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.05.09.540043. [PMID: 37214963 PMCID: PMC10197710 DOI: 10.1101/2023.05.09.540043] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
Single-cell technologies can readily measure the expression of thousands of molecular features from individual cells undergoing dynamic biological processes, such as cellular differentiation, immune response, and disease progression. While examining cells along a computationally ordered pseudotime offers the potential to study how subtle changes in gene or protein expression impact cell fate decision-making, identifying characteristic features that drive continuous biological processes remains difficult to detect from unenriched and noisy single-cell data. Given that all profiled sources of feature variation contribute to the cell-to-cell distances that define an inferred cellular trajectory, including confounding sources of biological variation (e.g. cell cycle or metabolic state) or noisy and irrelevant features (e.g. measurements with low signal-to-noise ratio) can mask the underlying trajectory of study and hinder inference. Here, we present DELVE (dynamic selection of locally covarying features), an unsupervised feature selection method for identifying a representative subset of dynamically-expressed molecular features that recapitulates cellular trajectories. In contrast to previous work, DELVE uses a bottom-up approach to mitigate the effect of unwanted sources of variation confounding inference, and instead models cell states from dynamic feature modules that constitute core regulatory complexes. Using simulations, single-cell RNA sequencing data, and iterative immunofluorescence imaging data in the context of the cell cycle and cellular differentiation, we demonstrate that DELVE selects features that more accurately characterize cell populations and improve the recovery of cell type transitions. This feature selection framework provides an alternative approach for improving trajectory inference and uncovering co-variation amongst features along a biological trajectory. DELVE is implemented as an open-source python package and is publicly available at: https://github.com/jranek/delve.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jolene S. Ranek
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Wayne Stallaert
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Justin Milner
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Natalie Stanley
- Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Jeremy E. Purvis
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
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20
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Briggs EM, Marques CA, Oldrieve GR, Hu J, Otto TD, Matthews KR. Profiling the bloodstream form and procyclic form Trypanosoma brucei cell cycle using single-cell transcriptomics. eLife 2023; 12:e86325. [PMID: 37166108 PMCID: PMC10212563 DOI: 10.7554/elife.86325] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2023] [Accepted: 05/10/2023] [Indexed: 05/12/2023] Open
Abstract
African trypanosomes proliferate as bloodstream forms (BSFs) and procyclic forms in the mammal and tsetse fly midgut, respectively. This allows them to colonise the host environment upon infection and ensure life cycle progression. Yet, understanding of the mechanisms that regulate and drive the cell replication cycle of these forms is limited. Using single-cell transcriptomics on unsynchronised cell populations, we have obtained high resolution cell cycle regulated (CCR) transcriptomes of both procyclic and slender BSF Trypanosoma brucei without prior cell sorting or synchronisation. Additionally, we describe an efficient freeze-thawing protocol that allows single-cell transcriptomic analysis of cryopreserved T. brucei. Computational reconstruction of the cell cycle using periodic pseudotime inference allowed the dynamic expression patterns of cycling genes to be profiled for both life cycle forms. Comparative analyses identify a core cycling transcriptome highly conserved between forms, as well as several genes where transcript levels dynamics are form specific. Comparing transcript expression patterns with protein abundance revealed that the majority of genes with periodic cycling transcript and protein levels exhibit a relative delay between peak transcript and protein expression. This work reveals novel detail of the CCR transcriptomes of both forms, which are available for further interrogation via an interactive webtool.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emma M Briggs
- Institute for Immunology and Infection Research, School of Biological Sciences, University of EdinburghEdinburghUnited Kingdom
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology, School of Infection & Immunity, University of GlasgowGlasgowUnited Kingdom
| | - Catarina A Marques
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology, School of Infection & Immunity, University of GlasgowGlasgowUnited Kingdom
| | - Guy R Oldrieve
- Institute for Immunology and Infection Research, School of Biological Sciences, University of EdinburghEdinburghUnited Kingdom
| | - Jihua Hu
- Institute for Immunology and Infection Research, School of Biological Sciences, University of EdinburghEdinburghUnited Kingdom
| | - Thomas D Otto
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology, School of Infection & Immunity, University of GlasgowGlasgowUnited Kingdom
| | - Keith R Matthews
- Institute for Immunology and Infection Research, School of Biological Sciences, University of EdinburghEdinburghUnited Kingdom
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21
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Álvarez-Campos P, García-Castro H, Emili E, Pérez-Posada A, Salamanca-Díaz DA, Mason V, Metzger B, Bely AE, Kenny N, Özpolat BD, Solana J. Annelid adult cell type diversity and their pluripotent cellular origins. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.04.25.537979. [PMID: 37163014 PMCID: PMC10168269 DOI: 10.1101/2023.04.25.537979] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
Annelids are a broadly distributed, highly diverse, economically and environmentally important group of animals. Most species can regenerate missing body parts, and many are able to reproduce asexually. Therefore, many annelids can generate all adult cell types in adult stages. However, the putative adult stem cell populations involved in these processes, as well as the diversity of adult cell types generated by them, are still unknown. Here, we recover 75,218 single cell transcriptomes of Pristina leidyi, a highly regenerative and asexually-reproducing freshwater annelid. We characterise all major annelid adult cell types, and validate many of our observations by HCR in situ hybridisation. Our results uncover complex patterns of regionally expressed genes in the annelid gut, as well as neuronal, muscle and epidermal specific genes. We also characterise annelid-specific cell types such as the chaetal sacs and globin+ cells, and novel cell types of enigmatic affinity, including a vigilin+ cell type, a lumbrokinase+ cell type, and a diverse set of metabolic cells. Moreover, we characterise transcription factors and gene networks that are expressed specifically in these populations. Finally, we uncover a broadly abundant cluster of putative stem cells with a pluripotent signature. This population expresses well-known stem cell markers such as vasa, piwi and nanos homologues, but also shows heterogeneous expression of differentiated cell markers and their transcription factors. In these piwi+ cells, we also find conserved expression of pluripotency regulators, including multiple chromatin remodelling and epigenetic factors. Finally, lineage reconstruction analyses reveal the existence of differentiation trajectories from piwi+ cells to diverse adult types. Our data reveal the cell type diversity of adult annelids for the first time and serve as a resource for studying annelid cell types and their evolution. On the other hand, our characterisation of a piwi+ cell population with a pluripotent stem cell signature will serve as a platform for the study of annelid stem cells and their role in regeneration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patricia Álvarez-Campos
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM) & Departamento de Biología (Zoología), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Helena García-Castro
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
| | - Elena Emili
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
| | - Alberto Pérez-Posada
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
| | | | - Vincent Mason
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
| | - Bria Metzger
- Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, MA, USA, 05432
- Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis. 1 Brookings Dr. Saint Louis, MO, USA, 63130
| | | | - Nathan Kenny
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand
| | - B Duygu Özpolat
- Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, MA, USA, 05432
- Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis. 1 Brookings Dr. Saint Louis, MO, USA, 63130
| | - Jordi Solana
- Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
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22
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Reagor CC, Velez-Angel N, Hudspeth AJ. Depicting pseudotime-lagged causality across single-cell trajectories for accurate gene-regulatory inference. PNAS NEXUS 2023; 2:pgad113. [PMID: 37113980 PMCID: PMC10129065 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad113] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2022] [Revised: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 03/23/2023] [Indexed: 04/29/2023]
Abstract
Identifying the causal interactions in gene-regulatory networks requires an accurate understanding of the time-lagged relationships between transcription factors and their target genes. Here we describe DELAY (short for Depicting Lagged Causality), a convolutional neural network for the inference of gene-regulatory relationships across pseudotime-ordered single-cell trajectories. We show that combining supervised deep learning with joint probability matrices of pseudotime-lagged trajectories allows the network to overcome important limitations of ordinary Granger causality-based methods, for example, the inability to infer cyclic relationships such as feedback loops. Our network outperforms several common methods for inferring gene regulation and, when given partial ground-truth labels, predicts novel regulatory networks from single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and single-cell ATAC sequencing (scATAC-seq) data sets. To validate this approach, we used DELAY to identify important genes and modules in the regulatory network of auditory hair cells, as well as likely DNA-binding partners for two hair cell cofactors (Hist1h1c and Ccnd1) and a novel binding sequence for the hair cell-specific transcription factor Fiz1. We provide an easy-to-use implementation of DELAY under an open-source license at https://github.com/calebclayreagor/DELAY.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Nicolas Velez-Angel
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
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23
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Goffin N, Buache E, Charpentier C, Lehrter V, Morjani H, Gobinet C, Piot O. Trajectory Inference for Unraveling Dynamic Biological Processes from Raman Spectral Data. Anal Chem 2023; 95:4395-4403. [PMID: 36788139 DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.2c04901] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/16/2023]
Abstract
Cell heterogeneity is a crucial parameter for understanding the complexity of numerous biomedical issues. Trajectory inference-based approaches are recent tools developed for single-cell transcriptomics (scRNA-seq) data analysis. They aim to reconstruct evolving pathways from the variety of cell states that coexist simultaneously in a cell population. We propose to expand this concept to Raman spectroscopy, a label-free modality that probes the global molecular nature of a sample, by investigating the dynamics of adipocyte differentiation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas Goffin
- University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, BioSpecT EA 7506, SFR Santé, France
| | - Emilie Buache
- University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, BioSpecT EA 7506, SFR Santé, France
| | - Celine Charpentier
- University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, BioSpecT EA 7506, SFR Santé, France
| | - Véronique Lehrter
- University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, BioSpecT EA 7506, SFR Santé, France
| | - Hamid Morjani
- University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, BioSpecT EA 7506, SFR Santé, France
| | - Cyril Gobinet
- University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, BioSpecT EA 7506, SFR Santé, France
| | - Olivier Piot
- University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, BioSpecT EA 7506, SFR Santé, France.,University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, Platform of Cellular and Tissular Imaging (PICT) EA 7506, SFR Santé, France
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24
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Wei Y, Xu Z, Hu M, Wu Z, Liu A, Czajkowsky DM, Guo Y, Shao Z. Time-resolved transcriptomics of mouse gastric pit cells during postnatal development reveals features distinct from whole stomach development. FEBS Lett 2023; 597:418-426. [PMID: 36285639 DOI: 10.1002/1873-3468.14525] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2022] [Revised: 09/27/2022] [Accepted: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
Whole-organ transcriptomic analyses have emerged as a common method for characterizing developmental transitions in mammalian organs. However, it is unclear if all cell types in an organ follow the whole-organ defined developmental trajectory. Recently, a postnatal two-stage developmental process was described for the mouse stomach. Here, using laser capture microdissection to obtain in situ transcriptomic data, we show that mouse gastric pit cells exhibit four postnatal developmental stages. Interestingly, early stages are characterized by the up-regulation of genes associated with metabolism, a functionality not typically associated with pit cells. Hence, beyond revealing that not all constituent cells develop according to the whole-organ determined pathway, these results broaden our understanding of the pit cell phenotypic landscape during stomach development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ying Wei
- School of Biomedical Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Oncogenes and Bio-ID Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
| | - Zeqian Xu
- School of Biomedical Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Oncogenes and Bio-ID Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
| | - Miaomiao Hu
- School of Biomedical Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Oncogenes and Bio-ID Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
| | - Zhongqin Wu
- School of Biomedical Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Oncogenes and Bio-ID Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
| | - Axian Liu
- School of Biomedical Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Oncogenes and Bio-ID Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
| | - Daniel M Czajkowsky
- School of Biomedical Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Oncogenes and Bio-ID Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
| | - Yan Guo
- School of Biomedical Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Oncogenes and Bio-ID Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
| | - Zhifeng Shao
- School of Biomedical Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Oncogenes and Bio-ID Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
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25
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Haghverdi L, Ludwig LS. Single-cell multi-omics and lineage tracing to dissect cell fate decision-making. Stem Cell Reports 2023; 18:13-25. [PMID: 36630900 PMCID: PMC9860164 DOI: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2022.12.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2022] [Revised: 12/07/2022] [Accepted: 12/07/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
The concept of cell fate relates to the future identity of a cell, and its daughters, which is obtained via cell differentiation and division. Understanding, predicting, and manipulating cell fate has been a long-sought goal of developmental and regenerative biology. Recent insights obtained from single-cell genomic and integrative lineage-tracing approaches have further aided to identify molecular features predictive of cell fate. In this perspective, we discuss these approaches with a focus on theoretical concepts and future directions of the field to dissect molecular mechanisms underlying cell fate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laleh Haghverdi
- Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB), Berlin, Germany.
| | - Leif S. Ludwig
- Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB), Berlin, Germany,Berlin Institute of Health at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany,Corresponding author
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26
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Bocci F, Zhou P, Nie Q. spliceJAC: transition genes and state-specific gene regulation from single-cell transcriptome data. Mol Syst Biol 2022; 18:e11176. [PMID: 36321549 PMCID: PMC9627675 DOI: 10.15252/msb.202211176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2022] [Revised: 10/07/2022] [Accepted: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Extracting dynamical information from single-cell transcriptomics is a novel task with the promise to advance our understanding of cell state transition and interactions between genes. Yet, theory-oriented, bottom-up approaches that consider differences among cell states are largely lacking. Here, we present spliceJAC, a method to quantify the multivariate mRNA splicing from single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). spliceJAC utilizes the unspliced and spliced mRNA count matrices to constructs cell state-specific gene-gene regulatory interactions and applies stability analysis to predict putative driver genes critical to the transitions between cell states. By applying spliceJAC to biological systems including pancreas endothelium development and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in A549 lung cancer cells, we predict genes that serve specific signaling roles in different cell states, recover important differentially expressed genes in agreement with pre-existing analysis, and predict new transition genes that are either exclusive or shared between different cell state transitions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Federico Bocci
- Department of MathematicsUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCAUSA
- NSF‐Simons Center for Multiscale Cell Fate ResearchUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCAUSA
| | - Peijie Zhou
- Department of MathematicsUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCAUSA
| | - Qing Nie
- Department of MathematicsUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCAUSA
- NSF‐Simons Center for Multiscale Cell Fate ResearchUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCAUSA
- Department of Developmental and Cell BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCAUSA
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27
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Chen C, Liao Y, Peng G. Connecting past and present: single-cell lineage tracing. Protein Cell 2022; 13:790-807. [PMID: 35441356 PMCID: PMC9237189 DOI: 10.1007/s13238-022-00913-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2021] [Accepted: 03/06/2022] [Indexed: 01/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Central to the core principle of cell theory, depicting cells’ history, state and fate is a fundamental goal in modern biology. By leveraging clonal analysis and single-cell RNA-seq technologies, single-cell lineage tracing provides new opportunities to interrogate both cell states and lineage histories. During the past few years, many strategies to achieve lineage tracing at single-cell resolution have been developed, and three of them (integration barcodes, polylox barcodes, and CRISPR barcodes) are noteworthy as they are amenable in experimentally tractable systems. Although the above strategies have been demonstrated in animal development and stem cell research, much care and effort are still required to implement these methods. Here we review the development of single-cell lineage tracing, major characteristics of the cell barcoding strategies, applications, as well as technical considerations and limitations, providing a guide to choose or improve the single-cell barcoding lineage tracing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cheng Chen
- Center for Cell Lineage and Development, CAS Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, GIBH-HKU Guangdong-Hong Kong Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research Centre, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510530, China
| | - Yuanxin Liao
- Center for Cell Lineage and Development, CAS Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, GIBH-HKU Guangdong-Hong Kong Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research Centre, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510530, China.,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Guangdun Peng
- Center for Cell Lineage and Development, CAS Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, GIBH-HKU Guangdong-Hong Kong Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research Centre, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510530, China. .,Center for Cell Lineage and Atlas, Bioland Laboratory (Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Guangdong Laboratory), Guangzhou, 510005, China. .,Institute for Stem Cell and Regeneration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
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28
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Kim SH, Cho SY. Single-cell transcriptomics to understand the cellular heterogeneity in toxicology. Mol Cell Toxicol 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s13273-022-00304-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Background
Identification of molecular signatures from omics studies is widely applied in toxicological studies, and the evaluation of potential toxic effects provides novel insights into molecular resolution.
Objective
The prediction of toxic effects and drug tolerance provides important clues regarding the mode of action of target compounds. However, heterogeneity within samples makes toxicology studies challenging because the purity of the target cell in the samples remains unknown until their actual utilization.
Result
Single-cell resolution studies have been suggested in toxicogenomics, and several studies have explained toxic effects and drug tolerance using heterogeneous cells in both in vivo and in vitro conditions. In this review, we presented an understanding of single-cell transcriptomes and their applications in toxicogenomics.
Conclusion
The most toxicological mechanism in organisms occurs through intramolecular combinations, and heterogeneity issues have reached a surmountable level. We hope this review provides insights to successfully conduct future studies on toxicology.
Purpose of the review
Toxicogenomics is an interdisciplinary field between toxicology and genomics that was successfully applied to construct molecular profiles in a broad spectrum of toxicology. However, heterogeneity within samples makes toxicology studies challenging because the purity of target cell in the samples remains unknown until their actual utilisation. In this review, we presented an understanding of single-cell transcriptomes and their applications in toxicogenomics.
Recent findings
A high-throughput techniques have been used to understand cellular heterogeneity and molecular mechanisms at toxicogenomics. Single-cell resolution analysis is required to identify biomarkers of explain toxic effect and in order to understand drug tolerance.
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29
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Single-cell transcriptomics in planaria: new tools allow new insights into cellular and evolutionary features. Biochem Soc Trans 2022; 50:1237-1246. [DOI: 10.1042/bst20210825] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2022] [Revised: 09/26/2022] [Accepted: 10/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Single-cell transcriptomics has revolutionised biology allowing the quantification of gene expression in individual cells. Since each single cell contains cell type specific mRNAs, these techniques enable the classification of cell identities. Therefore, single cell methods have been used to explore the repertoire of cell types (the single cell atlas) of different organisms, including freshwater planarians. Nowadays, planarians are one of the most prominent animal models in single cell biology. They have been studied at the single cell level for over a decade using most of the available single cell methodological approaches. These include plate-based methods, such as qPCR, nanodroplet methods and in situ barcoding methods. Because of these studies, we now have a very good picture of planarian cell types and their differentiation trajectories. Planarian regenerative properties and other characteristics, such as their developmental plasticity and their capacity to reproduce asexually, ensure that another decade of single cell biology in planarians is yet to come. Here, we review these characteristics, the new biological insights that have been obtained by single-cell transcriptomics and outline the perspectives for the future.
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30
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Toh K, Saunders D, Verd B, Steventon B. Zebrafish neuromesodermal progenitors undergo a critical state transition in vivo. iScience 2022; 25:105216. [PMID: 36274939 PMCID: PMC9579027 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105216] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2022] [Revised: 08/05/2022] [Accepted: 09/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The transition state model of cell differentiation proposes that a transient window of gene expression stochasticity precedes entry into a differentiated state. Here, we assess this theoretical model in zebrafish neuromesodermal progenitors (NMps) in vivo during late somitogenesis stages. We observed an increase in gene expression variability at the 24 somite stage (24ss) before their differentiation into spinal cord and paraxial mesoderm. Analysis of a published 18ss scRNA-seq dataset showed that the NMp population is noisier than its derivatives. By building in silico composite gene expression maps from image data, we assigned an 'NM index' to in silico NMps based on the expression of neural and mesodermal markers and demonstrated that cell population heterogeneity peaked at 24ss. Further examination revealed cells with gene expression profiles incongruent with their prospective fate. Taken together, our work supports the transition state model within an endogenous cell fate decision making event.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kane Toh
- Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EH, UK
| | - Dillan Saunders
- Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EH, UK
| | - Berta Verd
- Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EH, UK
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3SZ, UK
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31
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Gorin G, Fang M, Chari T, Pachter L. RNA velocity unraveled. PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1010492. [PMID: 36094956 PMCID: PMC9499228 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010492] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2022] [Revised: 09/22/2022] [Accepted: 08/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
We perform a thorough analysis of RNA velocity methods, with a view towards understanding the suitability of the various assumptions underlying popular implementations. In addition to providing a self-contained exposition of the underlying mathematics, we undertake simulations and perform controlled experiments on biological datasets to assess workflow sensitivity to parameter choices and underlying biology. Finally, we argue for a more rigorous approach to RNA velocity, and present a framework for Markovian analysis that points to directions for improvement and mitigation of current problems. Single-cell sequencing data are snapshots of biological processes, making it challenging to infer dynamic relationships between cell types. RNA velocity attempts to bypass this challenge by treating the unspliced RNA content as a proxy for spliced RNA content in the near future, and using this “extrapolation” to build directional relationships. However, the method, as implemented in several software packages, is not yet reliable enough to be actionable, in part due to the large number of arbitrary, user-set hyperparameters, as well as fundamental incompatibilities between the biophysics of transcription in the living cell and the models used throughout the velocity workflows. In this study, we review these issues, and use existing results from the fields of stochastic modeling and fluorescence transcriptomics to develop an alternative theoretical framework. We show that our framework can facilitate the development and inference of physically consistent models for sequencing data, as well as the unification of single-cell analyses to self-consistently treat variation due to cell type dynamics and identities, the stochasticity inherent to single-molecule processes, and the uncertainty introduced by sequencing experiments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gennady Gorin
- Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, United States of America
| | - Meichen Fang
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, United States of America
| | - Tara Chari
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, United States of America
| | - Lior Pachter
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, United States of America
- Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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32
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Manuel M, Tan KB, Kozic Z, Molinek M, Marcos TS, Razak MFA, Dobolyi D, Dobie R, Henderson BEP, Henderson NC, Chan WK, Daw MI, Mason JO, Price DJ. Pax6 limits the competence of developing cerebral cortical cells to respond to inductive intercellular signals. PLoS Biol 2022; 20:e3001563. [PMID: 36067211 PMCID: PMC9481180 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2022] [Revised: 09/16/2022] [Accepted: 07/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The development of stable specialized cell types in multicellular organisms relies on mechanisms controlling inductive intercellular signals and the competence of cells to respond to such signals. In developing cerebral cortex, progenitors generate only glutamatergic excitatory neurons despite being exposed to signals with the potential to initiate the production of other neuronal types, suggesting that their competence is limited. Here, we tested the hypothesis that this limitation is due to their expression of transcription factor Pax6. We used bulk and single-cell RNAseq to show that conditional cortex-specific Pax6 deletion from the onset of cortical neurogenesis allowed some progenitors to generate abnormal lineages resembling those normally found outside the cortex. Analysis of selected gene expression showed that the changes occurred in specific spatiotemporal patterns. We then compared the responses of control and Pax6-deleted cortical cells to in vivo and in vitro manipulations of extracellular signals. We found that Pax6 loss increased cortical progenitors’ competence to generate inappropriate lineages in response to extracellular factors normally present in developing cortex, including the morphogens Shh and Bmp4. Regional variation in the levels of these factors could explain spatiotemporal patterns of fate change following Pax6 deletion in vivo. We propose that Pax6’s main role in developing cortical cells is to minimize the risk of their development being derailed by the potential side effects of morphogens engaged contemporaneously in other essential functions. The development of stable specialized cell types in multicellular organisms relies on mechanisms controlling inductive intercellular signals and the competence of cells to respond. This study shows that cortical development is stabilized by the protective actions of the transcription factor Pax6, which adjusts the ability of cortical cells to respond to potentially destabilizing signals present in their local environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martine Manuel
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Kai Boon Tan
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Zrinko Kozic
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Michael Molinek
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Tiago Sena Marcos
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Maizatul Fazilah Abd Razak
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Dániel Dobolyi
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Ross Dobie
- Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Beth E. P. Henderson
- Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Neil C. Henderson
- Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Wai Kit Chan
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Michael I. Daw
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Zhejiang University-University of Edinburgh Institute, Zhejiang University, Haining, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China
| | - John O. Mason
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - David J. Price
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- * E-mail:
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33
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Ranek JS, Stanley N, Purvis JE. Integrating temporal single-cell gene expression modalities for trajectory inference and disease prediction. Genome Biol 2022; 23:186. [PMID: 36064614 PMCID: PMC9442962 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-022-02749-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2022] [Accepted: 08/16/2022] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Current methods for analyzing single-cell datasets have relied primarily on static gene expression measurements to characterize the molecular state of individual cells. However, capturing temporal changes in cell state is crucial for the interpretation of dynamic phenotypes such as the cell cycle, development, or disease progression. RNA velocity infers the direction and speed of transcriptional changes in individual cells, yet it is unclear how these temporal gene expression modalities may be leveraged for predictive modeling of cellular dynamics. RESULTS Here, we present the first task-oriented benchmarking study that investigates integration of temporal sequencing modalities for dynamic cell state prediction. We benchmark ten integration approaches on ten datasets spanning different biological contexts, sequencing technologies, and species. We find that integrated data more accurately infers biological trajectories and achieves increased performance on classifying cells according to perturbation and disease states. Furthermore, we show that simple concatenation of spliced and unspliced molecules performs consistently well on classification tasks and can be used over more memory intensive and computationally expensive methods. CONCLUSIONS This work illustrates how integrated temporal gene expression modalities may be leveraged for predicting cellular trajectories and sample-associated perturbation and disease phenotypes. Additionally, this study provides users with practical recommendations for task-specific integration of single-cell gene expression modalities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jolene S. Ranek
- grid.10698.360000000122483208Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA ,grid.10698.360000000122483208Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA
| | - Natalie Stanley
- grid.10698.360000000122483208Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA ,grid.10698.360000000122483208Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA
| | - Jeremy E. Purvis
- grid.10698.360000000122483208Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA ,grid.10698.360000000122483208Computational Medicine Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA
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Lynch AW, Theodoris CV, Long HW, Brown M, Liu XS, Meyer CA. MIRA: joint regulatory modeling of multimodal expression and chromatin accessibility in single cells. Nat Methods 2022; 19:1097-1108. [PMID: 36068320 PMCID: PMC9517733 DOI: 10.1038/s41592-022-01595-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2021] [Accepted: 07/26/2022] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
Rigorously comparing gene expression and chromatin accessibility in the same single cells could illuminate the logic of how coupling or decoupling of these mechanisms regulates fate commitment. Here we present MIRA, probabilistic multimodal models for integrated regulatory analysis, a comprehensive methodology that systematically contrasts transcription and accessibility to infer the regulatory circuitry driving cells along cell state trajectories. MIRA leverages topic modeling of cell states and regulatory potential modeling of individual gene loci. MIRA thereby represents cell states in an efficient and interpretable latent space, infers high-fidelity cell state trees, determines key regulators of fate decisions at branch points and exposes the variable influence of local accessibility on transcription at distinct loci. Applied to epidermal differentiation and embryonic brain development from two different multimodal platforms, MIRA revealed that early developmental genes were tightly regulated by local chromatin landscape whereas terminal fate genes were titrated without requiring extensive chromatin remodeling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Allen W Lynch
- Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.,Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Christina V Theodoris
- Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.,Division of Genetics and Genomics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.,Harvard Medical School Genetics Training Program, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Henry W Long
- Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Myles Brown
- Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - X Shirley Liu
- Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA. .,Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA. .,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Clifford A Meyer
- Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA. .,Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA. .,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
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Chen W, Guillaume-Gentil O, Rainer PY, Gäbelein CG, Saelens W, Gardeux V, Klaeger A, Dainese R, Zachara M, Zambelli T, Vorholt JA, Deplancke B. Live-seq enables temporal transcriptomic recording of single cells. Nature 2022; 608:733-740. [PMID: 35978187 PMCID: PMC9402441 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05046-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 67] [Impact Index Per Article: 33.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2021] [Accepted: 06/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Single-cell transcriptomics (scRNA-seq) has greatly advanced our ability to characterize cellular heterogeneity1. However, scRNA-seq requires lysing cells, which impedes further molecular or functional analyses on the same cells. Here, we established Live-seq, a single-cell transcriptome profiling approach that preserves cell viability during RNA extraction using fluidic force microscopy2,3, thus allowing to couple a cell's ground-state transcriptome to its downstream molecular or phenotypic behaviour. To benchmark Live-seq, we used cell growth, functional responses and whole-cell transcriptome read-outs to demonstrate that Live-seq can accurately stratify diverse cell types and states without inducing major cellular perturbations. As a proof of concept, we show that Live-seq can be used to directly map a cell's trajectory by sequentially profiling the transcriptomes of individual macrophages before and after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation, and of adipose stromal cells pre- and post-differentiation. In addition, we demonstrate that Live-seq can function as a transcriptomic recorder by preregistering the transcriptomes of individual macrophages that were subsequently monitored by time-lapse imaging after LPS exposure. This enabled the unsupervised, genome-wide ranking of genes on the basis of their ability to affect macrophage LPS response heterogeneity, revealing basal Nfkbia expression level and cell cycle state as important phenotypic determinants, which we experimentally validated. Thus, Live-seq can address a broad range of biological questions by transforming scRNA-seq from an end-point to a temporal analysis approach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wanze Chen
- Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, Institute of Bio-engineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
| | | | - Pernille Yde Rainer
- Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, Institute of Bio-engineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Christoph G Gäbelein
- Department of Biology, Institute of Microbiology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Wouter Saelens
- Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, Institute of Bio-engineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Vincent Gardeux
- Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, Institute of Bio-engineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Amanda Klaeger
- Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, Institute of Bio-engineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Riccardo Dainese
- Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, Institute of Bio-engineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Magda Zachara
- Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, Institute of Bio-engineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Tomaso Zambelli
- Laboratory of Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Julia A Vorholt
- Department of Biology, Institute of Microbiology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Bart Deplancke
- Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, Institute of Bio-engineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland.
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36
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Zeng H. What is a cell type and how to define it? Cell 2022; 185:2739-2755. [PMID: 35868277 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.06.031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 118] [Impact Index Per Article: 59.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2022] [Revised: 06/14/2022] [Accepted: 06/14/2022] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
Cell types are the basic functional units of an organism. Cell types exhibit diverse phenotypic properties at multiple levels, making them challenging to define, categorize, and understand. This review provides an overview of the basic principles of cell types rooted in evolution and development and discusses approaches to characterize and classify cell types and investigate how they contribute to the organism's function, using the mammalian brain as a primary example. I propose a roadmap toward a conceptual framework and knowledge base of cell types that will enable a deeper understanding of the dynamic changes of cellular function under healthy and diseased conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hongkui Zeng
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.
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37
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Wang R, Peng G, Tam PPL, Jing N. Integration of computational analysis and spatial transcriptomics in single-cell study. GENOMICS, PROTEOMICS & BIOINFORMATICS 2022:S1672-0229(22)00084-5. [PMID: 35901961 PMCID: PMC10372908 DOI: 10.1016/j.gpb.2022.06.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/04/2020] [Revised: 06/08/2022] [Accepted: 06/19/2022] [Indexed: 04/08/2023]
Abstract
Recent advances of single-cell transcriptomics technologies and allied computational methodologies have revolutionized molecular cell biology. Meanwhile, pioneering explorations in spatial transcriptomics have opened avenues to address fundamental biological questions in health and diseases. Here, we review the technical attributes of single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics, and the core concepts of computational data analysis. We further highlight the challenges in the application of data integration methodologies and the interpretation of the biological context of the findings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ran Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
| | - Guangdun Peng
- CAS Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510530, China; Institute for Stem Cell and Regeneration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Patrick P L Tam
- Embryology Research Unit, Children's Medical Research Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2145, Australia; School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2145, Australia
| | - Naihe Jing
- State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China; Guangzhou Laboratory, Guangzhou 510005, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510530, China; Institute for Stem Cell and Regeneration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
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38
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Ho VW, Grainger DE, Chagraoui H, Porcher C. Specification of the haematopoietic stem cell lineage: From blood-fated mesodermal angioblasts to haemogenic endothelium. Semin Cell Dev Biol 2022; 127:59-67. [PMID: 35125239 DOI: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2022.01.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2021] [Revised: 01/20/2022] [Accepted: 01/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells emerge from specialized haemogenic endothelial cells in select vascular beds during embryonic development. Specification and commitment to the blood lineage, however, occur before endothelial cells are endowed with haemogenic competence, at the time of mesoderm patterning and production of endothelial cell progenitors (angioblasts). Whilst early blood cell fate specification has long been recognized, very little is known about the mechanisms that induce endothelial cell diversification and progressive acquisition of a blood identity by a subset of these cells. Here, we review the endothelial origin of the haematopoietic system and the complex developmental journey of blood-fated angioblasts. We discuss how recent technological advances will be instrumental to examine the diversity of the embryonic anatomical niches, signaling pathways and downstream epigenetic and transcriptional processes controlling endothelial cell heterogeneity and blood cell fate specification. Ultimately, this will give essential insights into the ontogeny of the cells giving rise to haematopoietic stem cells, that may aid in the development of novel strategies for their in vitro production for clinical purposes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vivien W Ho
- MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - David E Grainger
- MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Hedia Chagraoui
- MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Catherine Porcher
- MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
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39
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Duvall E, Benitez CM, Tellez K, Enge M, Pauerstein PT, Li L, Baek S, Quake SR, Smith JP, Sheffield NC, Kim SK, Arda HE. Single-cell transcriptome and accessible chromatin dynamics during endocrine pancreas development. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2201267119. [PMID: 35733248 PMCID: PMC9245718 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2201267119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2022] [Accepted: 05/10/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Delineating gene regulatory networks that orchestrate cell-type specification is a continuing challenge for developmental biologists. Single-cell analyses offer opportunities to address these challenges and accelerate discovery of rare cell lineage relationships and mechanisms underlying hierarchical lineage decisions. Here, we describe the molecular analysis of mouse pancreatic endocrine cell differentiation using single-cell transcriptomics, chromatin accessibility assays coupled to genetic labeling, and cytometry-based cell purification. We uncover transcription factor networks that delineate β-, α-, and δ-cell lineages. Through genomic footprint analysis, we identify transcription factor-regulatory DNA interactions governing pancreatic cell development at unprecedented resolution. Our analysis suggests that the transcription factor Neurog3 may act as a pioneer transcription factor to specify the pancreatic endocrine lineage. These findings could improve protocols to generate replacement endocrine cells from renewable sources, like stem cells, for diabetes therapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eliza Duvall
- Laboratory of Receptor Biology and Gene Expression, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892
| | - Cecil M. Benitez
- Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305
| | - Krissie Tellez
- Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305
| | - Martin Enge
- Department of Bioengineering and Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
| | - Philip T. Pauerstein
- Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305
| | - Lingyu Li
- Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305
| | - Songjoon Baek
- Laboratory of Receptor Biology and Gene Expression, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892
| | - Stephen R. Quake
- Department of Bioengineering and Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA 94158
| | - Jason P. Smith
- Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908
| | - Nathan C. Sheffield
- Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908
| | - Seung K. Kim
- Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305
- Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305
- Stanford Diabetes Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305
| | - H. Efsun Arda
- Laboratory of Receptor Biology and Gene Expression, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892
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40
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Morphological pseudotime ordering and fate mapping reveal diversification of cerebellar inhibitory interneurons. Nat Commun 2022; 13:3433. [PMID: 35701402 PMCID: PMC9197879 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30977-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2020] [Accepted: 05/20/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding how diverse neurons are assembled into circuits requires a framework for describing cell types and their developmental trajectories. Here we combine genetic fate-mapping, pseudotemporal profiling of morphogenesis, and dual morphology and RNA labeling to resolve the diversification of mouse cerebellar inhibitory interneurons. Molecular layer interneurons (MLIs) derive from a common progenitor population but comprise diverse dendritic-, somatic-, and axon initial segment-targeting interneurons. Using quantitative morphology from 79 mature MLIs, we identify two discrete morphological types and presence of extensive within-class heterogeneity. Pseudotime trajectory inference using 732 developmental morphologies indicate the emergence of distinct MLI types during migration, before reaching their final positions. By comparing MLI identities from morphological and transcriptomic signatures, we demonstrate the dissociation between these modalities and that subtype divergence can be resolved from axonal morphogenesis prior to marker gene expression. Our study illustrates the utility of applying single-cell methods to quantify morphology for defining neuronal diversification.
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41
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Minelli A, Valero-Gracia A. Spatially and Temporally Distributed Complexity-A Refreshed Framework for the Study of GRN Evolution. Cells 2022; 11:cells11111790. [PMID: 35681485 PMCID: PMC9179533 DOI: 10.3390/cells11111790] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2022] [Revised: 05/24/2022] [Accepted: 05/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Irrespective of the heuristic value of interpretations of developmental processes in terms of gene regulatory networks (GRNs), larger-angle views often suffer from: (i) an inadequate understanding of the relationship between genotype and phenotype; (ii) a predominantly zoocentric vision; and (iii) overconfidence in a putatively hierarchical organization of animal body plans. Here, we constructively criticize these assumptions. First, developmental biology is pervaded by adultocentrism, but development is not necessarily egg to adult. Second, during development, many unicells undergo transcriptomic profile transitions that are comparable to those recorded in pluricellular organisms; thus, their study should not be neglected from the GRN perspective. Third, the putatively hierarchical nature of the animal body is mirrored in the GRN logic, but in relating genotype to phenotype, independent assessments of the dynamics of the regulatory machinery and the animal’s architecture are required, better served by a combinatorial than by a hierarchical approach. The trade-offs between spatial and temporal aspects of regulation, as well as their evolutionary consequences, are also discussed. Multicellularity may derive from a unicell’s sequential phenotypes turned into different but coexisting, spatially arranged cell types. In turn, polyphenism may have been a crucial mechanism involved in the origin of complex life cycles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alessandro Minelli
- Department of Biology, University of Padova, Via U. Bassi 58B, 35132 Padova, Italy
- Correspondence:
| | - Alberto Valero-Gracia
- Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Blindern, P.O. Box 1172, 0318 Oslo, Norway;
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Yang D, Jones MG, Naranjo S, Rideout WM, Min KHJ, Ho R, Wu W, Replogle JM, Page JL, Quinn JJ, Horns F, Qiu X, Chen MZ, Freed-Pastor WA, McGinnis CS, Patterson DM, Gartner ZJ, Chow ED, Bivona TG, Chan MM, Yosef N, Jacks T, Weissman JS. Lineage tracing reveals the phylodynamics, plasticity, and paths of tumor evolution. Cell 2022; 185:1905-1923.e25. [PMID: 35523183 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.04.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 86] [Impact Index Per Article: 43.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2021] [Revised: 02/09/2022] [Accepted: 04/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
Tumor evolution is driven by the progressive acquisition of genetic and epigenetic alterations that enable uncontrolled growth and expansion to neighboring and distal tissues. The study of phylogenetic relationships between cancer cells provides key insights into these processes. Here, we introduced an evolving lineage-tracing system with a single-cell RNA-seq readout into a mouse model of Kras;Trp53(KP)-driven lung adenocarcinoma and tracked tumor evolution from single-transformed cells to metastatic tumors at unprecedented resolution. We found that the loss of the initial, stable alveolar-type2-like state was accompanied by a transient increase in plasticity. This was followed by the adoption of distinct transcriptional programs that enable rapid expansion and, ultimately, clonal sweep of stable subclones capable of metastasizing. Finally, tumors develop through stereotypical evolutionary trajectories, and perturbing additional tumor suppressors accelerates progression by creating novel trajectories. Our study elucidates the hierarchical nature of tumor evolution and, more broadly, enables in-depth studies of tumor progression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dian Yang
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Matthew G Jones
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Biological and Medical Informatics Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Integrative Program in Quantitative Biology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Santiago Naranjo
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - William M Rideout
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Kyung Hoi Joseph Min
- Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Raymond Ho
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Wei Wu
- Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Joseph M Replogle
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Medical Scientist Training Program, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Tetrad Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Jennifer L Page
- Cell and Genome Engineering Core, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Jeffrey J Quinn
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Felix Horns
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
| | - Xiaojie Qiu
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Michael Z Chen
- Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Medical Scientist Training Program, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - William A Freed-Pastor
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Christopher S McGinnis
- Tetrad Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - David M Patterson
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Zev J Gartner
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Chan Zuckerberg BioHub Investigator, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Center for Cellular Construction, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Eric D Chow
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Center for Advanced Technology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Trever G Bivona
- Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Michelle M Chan
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Nir Yosef
- Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Chan Zuckerberg BioHub Investigator, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
| | - Tyler Jacks
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
| | - Jonathan S Weissman
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
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Pan X, Li H, Zhang X. TedSim: temporal dynamics simulation of single-cell RNA sequencing data and cell division history. Nucleic Acids Res 2022; 50:4272-4288. [PMID: 35412632 PMCID: PMC9071466 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkac235] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2021] [Revised: 03/23/2022] [Accepted: 03/31/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Recently, lineage tracing technology using CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing has enabled simultaneous readouts of gene expressions and lineage barcodes, which allows for the reconstruction of the cell division tree and makes it possible to reconstruct ancestral cell types and trace the origin of each cell type. Meanwhile, trajectory inference methods are widely used to infer cell trajectories and pseudotime in a dynamic process using gene expression data of present-day cells. Here, we present TedSim (single-cell temporal dynamics simulator), which simulates the cell division events from the root cell to present-day cells, simultaneously generating two data modalities for each single cell: the lineage barcode and gene expression data. TedSim is a framework that connects the two problems: lineage tracing and trajectory inference. Using TedSim, we conducted analysis to show that (i) TedSim generates realistic gene expression and barcode data, as well as realistic relationships between these two data modalities; (ii) trajectory inference methods can recover the underlying cell state transition mechanism with balanced cell type compositions; and (iii) integrating gene expression and barcode data can provide more insights into the temporal dynamics in cell differentiation compared to using only one type of data, but better integration methods need to be developed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinhai Pan
- School of Computational Science and Engineering, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
| | - Hechen Li
- School of Computational Science and Engineering, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
| | - Xiuwei Zhang
- School of Computational Science and Engineering, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
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44
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Goodwin K, Jaslove JM, Tao H, Zhu M, Hopyan S, Nelson CM. Patterning the embryonic pulmonary mesenchyme. iScience 2022; 25:103838. [PMID: 35252804 PMCID: PMC8889149 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.103838] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2021] [Revised: 12/13/2021] [Accepted: 01/25/2022] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Smooth muscle guides the morphogenesis of several epithelia during organogenesis, including the mammalian airways. However, it remains unclear how airway smooth muscle differentiation is spatiotemporally patterned and whether it originates from transcriptionally distinct mesenchymal progenitors. Using single-cell RNA-sequencing of embryonic mouse lungs, we show that the pulmonary mesenchyme contains a continuum of cell identities, but no transcriptionally distinct progenitors. Transcriptional variability correlates with spatially distinct sub-epithelial and sub-mesothelial mesenchymal compartments that are regulated by Wnt signaling. Live-imaging and tension-sensors reveal compartment-specific migratory behaviors and cortical forces and show that sub-epithelial mesenchyme contributes to airway smooth muscle. Reconstructing differentiation trajectories reveals early activation of cytoskeletal and Wnt signaling genes. Consistently, Wnt activation induces the earliest stages of smooth muscle differentiation and local accumulation of mesenchymal F-actin, which influences epithelial morphology. Our single-cell approach uncovers the principles of pulmonary mesenchymal patterning and identifies a morphogenetically active mesenchymal layer that sculpts the airway epithelium. The embryonic lung mesenchyme is organized into spatially distinct compartments Migratory behaviors and cortical forces differ between compartments Diffusion analysis recapitulates airway smooth muscle differentiation The early stages of smooth muscle differentiation influence airway branching
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Affiliation(s)
- Katharine Goodwin
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Jacob M. Jaslove
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Hirotaka Tao
- Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Min Zhu
- Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto M5S 3G8, Canada
| | - Sevan Hopyan
- Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto M5S 1A8, Canada
- Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto, Toronto M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - Celeste M. Nelson
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Corresponding author
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45
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Slenders L, Tessels DE, van der Laan SW, Pasterkamp G, Mokry M. The Applications of Single-Cell RNA Sequencing in Atherosclerotic Disease. Front Cardiovasc Med 2022; 9:826103. [PMID: 35211529 PMCID: PMC8860895 DOI: 10.3389/fcvm.2022.826103] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2021] [Accepted: 01/03/2022] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Atherosclerosis still is the primary cause of death worldwide. Our characterization of the atherosclerotic lesion is mainly rooted in definitions based on pathological descriptions. We often speak in absolutes regarding plaque phenotypes: vulnerable vs. stable plaques or plaque rupture vs. plaque erosion. By focusing on these concepts, we may have oversimplified the atherosclerotic disease and its mechanisms. The widely used definitions of pathology-based plaque phenotypes can be fine-tuned with observations made with various -omics techniques. Recent advancements in single-cell transcriptomics provide the opportunity to characterize the cellular composition of the atherosclerotic plaque. This additional layer of information facilitates the in-depth characterization of the atherosclerotic plaque. In this review, we discuss the impact that single-cell transcriptomics may exert on our current understanding of atherosclerosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lotte Slenders
- Central Diagnostics Laboratory, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
| | - Daniëlle E Tessels
- Central Diagnostics Laboratory, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
| | - Sander W van der Laan
- Central Diagnostics Laboratory, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
| | - Gerard Pasterkamp
- Central Diagnostics Laboratory, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
| | - Michal Mokry
- Central Diagnostics Laboratory, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands.,Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology, Department of Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
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46
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CoSpar identifies early cell fate biases from single-cell transcriptomic and lineage information. Nat Biotechnol 2022; 40:1066-1074. [DOI: 10.1038/s41587-022-01209-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2021] [Accepted: 01/04/2022] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
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47
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Ding J, Sharon N, Bar-Joseph Z. Temporal modelling using single-cell transcriptomics. Nat Rev Genet 2022; 23:355-368. [PMID: 35102309 DOI: 10.1038/s41576-021-00444-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/14/2021] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
Methods for profiling genes at the single-cell level have revolutionized our ability to study several biological processes and systems including development, differentiation, response programmes and disease progression. In many of these studies, cells are profiled over time in order to infer dynamic changes in cell states and types, sets of expressed genes, active pathways and key regulators. However, time-series single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) also raises several new analysis and modelling issues. These issues range from determining when and how deep to profile cells, linking cells within and between time points, learning continuous trajectories, and integrating bulk and single-cell data for reconstructing models of dynamic networks. In this Review, we discuss several approaches for the analysis and modelling of time-series scRNA-seq, highlighting their steps, key assumptions, and the types of data and biological questions they are most appropriate for.
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48
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Jiang R, Sun T, Song D, Li JJ. Statistics or biology: the zero-inflation controversy about scRNA-seq data. Genome Biol 2022; 23:31. [PMID: 35063006 PMCID: PMC8783472 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-022-02601-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 99] [Impact Index Per Article: 49.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2021] [Accepted: 01/04/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Researchers view vast zeros in single-cell RNA-seq data differently: some regard zeros as biological signals representing no or low gene expression, while others regard zeros as missing data to be corrected. To help address the controversy, here we discuss the sources of biological and non-biological zeros; introduce five mechanisms of adding non-biological zeros in computational benchmarking; evaluate the impacts of non-biological zeros on data analysis; benchmark three input data types: observed counts, imputed counts, and binarized counts; discuss the open questions regarding non-biological zeros; and advocate the importance of transparent analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruochen Jiang
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-1554, CA, USA
| | - Tianyi Sun
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-1554, CA, USA
| | - Dongyuan Song
- Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-7246, CA, USA
| | - Jingyi Jessica Li
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-1554, CA, USA.
- Department of Human Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-7088, CA, USA.
- Department of Computational Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-1766, CA, USA.
- Department of Biostatistics, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-1772, CA, USA.
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49
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Mircea M, Semrau S. How a cell decides its own fate: a single-cell view of molecular mechanisms and dynamics of cell-type specification. Biochem Soc Trans 2021; 49:2509-2525. [PMID: 34854897 PMCID: PMC8786291 DOI: 10.1042/bst20210135] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2021] [Revised: 11/06/2021] [Accepted: 11/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
On its path from a fertilized egg to one of the many cell types in a multicellular organism, a cell turns the blank canvas of its early embryonic state into a molecular profile fine-tuned to achieve a vital organismal function. This remarkable transformation emerges from the interplay between dynamically changing external signals, the cell's internal, variable state, and tremendously complex molecular machinery; we are only beginning to understand. Recently developed single-cell omics techniques have started to provide an unprecedented, comprehensive view of the molecular changes during cell-type specification and promise to reveal the underlying gene regulatory mechanism. The exponentially increasing amount of quantitative molecular data being created at the moment is slated to inform predictive, mathematical models. Such models can suggest novel ways to manipulate cell types experimentally, which has important biomedical applications. This review is meant to give the reader a starting point to participate in this exciting phase of molecular developmental biology. We first introduce some of the principal molecular players involved in cell-type specification and discuss the important organizing ability of biomolecular condensates, which has been discovered recently. We then review some of the most important single-cell omics methods and relevant findings they produced. We devote special attention to the dynamics of the molecular changes and discuss methods to measure them, most importantly lineage tracing. Finally, we introduce a conceptual framework that connects all molecular agents in a mathematical model and helps us make sense of the experimental data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Mircea
- Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Stefan Semrau
- Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
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50
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Stutt N, Song M, Wilson MD, Scott IC. Cardiac specification during gastrulation - The Yellow Brick Road leading to Tinman. Semin Cell Dev Biol 2021; 127:46-58. [PMID: 34865988 DOI: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2021.11.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2021] [Revised: 11/05/2021] [Accepted: 11/11/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
The question of how the heart develops, and the genetic networks governing this process have become intense areas of research over the past several decades. This research is propelled by classical developmental studies and potential clinical applications to understand and treat congenital conditions in which cardiac development is disrupted. Discovery of the tinman gene in Drosophila, and examination of its vertebrate homolog Nkx2.5, along with other core cardiac transcription factors has revealed how cardiac progenitor differentiation and maturation drives heart development. Careful observation of cardiac morphogenesis along with lineage tracing approaches indicated that cardiac progenitors can be divided into two broad classes of cells, namely the first and second heart fields, that contribute to the heart in two distinct waves of differentiation. Ample evidence suggests that the fate of individual cardiac progenitors is restricted to distinct cardiac structures quite early in development, well before the expression of canonical cardiac progenitor markers like Nkx2.5. Here we review the initial specification of cardiac progenitors, discuss evidence for the early patterning of cardiac progenitors during gastrulation, and consider how early gene expression programs and epigenetic patterns can direct their development. A complete understanding of when and how the developmental potential of cardiac progenitors is determined, and their potential plasticity, is of great interest developmentally and also has important implications for both the study of congenital heart disease and therapeutic approaches based on cardiac stem cell programming.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nathan Stutt
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S1A8, Canada
| | - Mengyi Song
- Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G0A4, Canada; Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S1A8, Canada
| | - Michael D Wilson
- Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S1A8, Canada
| | - Ian C Scott
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S1A8, Canada.
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