Tissue layer and organ specificity of trichome formation are regulated by GLABRA1 and TRIPTYCHON in Arabidopsis

Development ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 125 (12) ◽  
pp. 2283-2289 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Schnittger ◽  
G. Jurgens ◽  
M. Hulskamp

In animal development, cellular diversity is generated within tissues which in turn are derived from germ layers. Similar to the germ layers in animals, plants establish three distinct tissue layers early in development which each give rise to a distinct set of cell types. To investigate the role of tissue-layer-specific cues in generating plant cellular diversity we studied the spatial regulation of an epidermal cell type, trichomes (hairs), by the two genes, GLABRA1 (GL1) and TRIPTYCHON (TRY). Ubiquitous expression of the positive regulator GL1 in the absence of the negative regulator TRY leads to ectopic trichome formation not only on additional organs but also in subepidermal tissue layers. Trichomes in inner tissue layers can differentiate the same morphology and show a spacing pattern comparable to trichomes in the epidermis. This clearly shows that cell type specification takes place downstream of tissue-specific cues. We propose a model of how the tissue and organ specificity of trichome induction is regulated in normal development.

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J Tarashansky ◽  
Jacob M Musser ◽  
Margarita Khariton ◽  
Pengyang Li ◽  
Detlev Arendt ◽  
...  

Comparing single-cell transcriptomic atlases from diverse organisms can elucidate the origins of cellular diversity and assist the annotation of new cell atlases. Yet, comparison between distant relatives is hindered by complex gene histories and diversifications in expression programs. Previously, we introduced the self-assembling manifold (SAM) algorithm to robustly reconstruct manifolds from single-cell data (Tarashansky et al., 2019). Here, we build on SAM to map cell atlas manifolds across species. This new method, SAMap, identifies homologous cell types with shared expression programs across distant species within phyla, even in complex examples where homologous tissues emerge from distinct germ layers. SAMap also finds many genes with more similar expression to their paralogs than their orthologs, suggesting paralog substitution may be more common in evolution than previously appreciated. Lastly, comparing species across animal phyla, spanning mouse to sponge, reveals ancient contractile and stem cell families, which may have arisen early in animal evolution.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre P. Marand ◽  
Zongliang Chen ◽  
Andrea Gallavotti ◽  
Robert J. Schmitz

ABSTRACTCis-regulatory elements (CREs) encode the genomic blueprints for coordinating spatiotemporal gene expression programs underlying highly specialized cell functions. To identify CREs underlying cell-type specification and developmental transitions, we implemented single-cell sequencing of Assay for Transposase Accessible Chromatin in an atlas of Zea mays organs. We describe 92 distinct states of chromatin accessibility across more than 165,913 putative CREs, 56,575 cells, and 52 known cell-types in maize using a novel implementation of regularized quasibinomial logistic regression. Cell states were largely determined by combinatorial accessibility of transcription factors (TFs) and their binding sites. A neural network revealed that cell identity could be accurately predicted (>0.94) solely based on TF binding site accessibility. Co-accessible chromatin recapitulated higher-order chromatin interactions, with distinct sets of TFs coordinating cell type-specific regulatory dynamics. Pseudotime reconstruction and alignment with Arabidopsis thaliana trajectories identified conserved TFs, associated motifs, and cis-regulatory regions specifying sequential developmental progressions. Cell-type specific accessible chromatin regions were enriched with phenotype-associated genetic variants and signatures of selection, revealing the major cell-types and putative CREs targeted by modern maize breeding. Collectively, our analysis affords a comprehensive framework for understanding cellular heterogeneity, evolution, and cis-regulatory grammar of cell-type specification in a major crop species.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Pérez Saturnino ◽  
Katharina Lust ◽  
Joachim Wittbrodt

AbstractPatterning of a continuously growing naive field in the context of a life-long growing organ, the teleost eye is of highest functional relevance. Intrinsic and extrinsic signals were proposed to regulate lineage specification in progenitors that exit the stem cell niche in the ciliary marginal zone (CMZ). The proper cell type composition arising from those progenitors is prerequisite for retinal function. Our findings in the teleost medaka (Oryzias latipes) uncover that the Notch–Atoh7 axis continuously patterns the CMZ. The complement of cell-types originating from the two juxtaposed progenitors marked by Notch or Atoh7 activity contains all constituents of a retinal column. Modulation of Notch signalling specifically in Atoh7-expressing cells demonstrates the crucial role of this axis in generating the correct cell type proportions. After transiently blocking Notch signalling, retinal patterning and differentiation is reinitiated de novo. Taken together we show that Notch activity in the CMZ continuously structures the growing retina by juxtaposing Notch and Atoh7 progenitors giving rise to distinct, complementary lineages, revealing a coupling of de novo patterning and cell-type specification in the respective lineages.


Author(s):  
Maria Mircea ◽  
Stefan Semrau

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.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonid L Moroz ◽  
Tigran P Norekian

Enigmatic ctenophores are descendants of one of the earliest branching metazoan lineage. Their nervous systems are equally elusive. The lack of convenient neurogenic molecules and neurotransmitters suggests an extensive parallel evolution and independent origins of neurons and synapses. However, the field is logged behind due to the lack of microanatomical data about the neuro-muscular systems in this group of animals. Here, using immunohistochemistry and scanning electron microscopy, we describe the organization of both muscular and nervous systems in the sea gooseberry, Pleurobrachia bachei, from North Pacific. The diffused neural system of Pleurobrachia consists of two subsystems: the subepithelial neural network and the mesogleal net with about 5000-7000 neurons combined. Our data revealed the unprecedented complexity of neuromuscular organization in this basal metazoan lineage. The anatomical diversity of cell types includes at least nine broad categories of neurons, five families of surface receptors and more than two dozen types of muscle cells as well as regional concentrations of neuronal elements to support ctenophore feeding, complex swimming, escape and prey capture behaviors. In summary, we recognize more than 80 total morphological cell types. Thus, in terms of cell type specification and diversity, ctenophores significantly exceed what we currently know about other prebilaterian groups (placozoan, sponges, and cnidarians), and some basal bilaterians.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Mizeracka ◽  
Julia M. Rogers ◽  
Jonathan D. Rumley ◽  
Shai Shaham ◽  
Martha L. Bulyk ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTDuring convergent differentiation, multiple developmental lineages produce a highly similar or identical cell type. However, the molecular players that drive convergent differentiation are not known. Here, we show that the C. elegans Forkhead transcription factor UNC-130 is required in only one of three convergent lineages that produce the same glial cell type. UNC-130 acts transiently as a repressor in progenitors and newly-born terminal cells to allow the proper specification of cells related by lineage rather than by cell type. Specification defects correlate with UNC-130:DNA binding, and UNC-130 can be functionally replaced by its human homolog, the neural crest lineage determinant FoxD3. We propose that, in contrast to terminal selectors that activate cell-type specific transcriptional programs in terminally differentiating cells, UNC-130 acts earlier to enable molecularly distinct progenitors to produce equivalent cell types. These findings provide evidence that convergent differentiation involves distinct transcriptional paths leading to the same cell type.


Author(s):  
Alexander J. Tarashansky ◽  
Jacob M. Musser ◽  
Margarita Khariton ◽  
Pengyang Li ◽  
Detlev Arendt ◽  
...  

AbstractComparing single-cell transcriptomic atlases from diverse organisms can provide evolutionary definition of cell types, elucidate the origins of cellular diversity, and transfer cell type knowledge between species. Yet, comparison among distant relatives, especially beyond a single phylum, is hindered by complex gene histories, lineage-specific inventions, and cell type evolutionary diversifications. Here, we develop a method to enable mapping cell atlases throughout Metazoa spanning sponge to mouse. Within phyla, we identify homologous cell types, even between distant species, with some even emerging from distinct germ layers. Across phyla, we find ancient cell type families that form densely interconnected groups, including contractile and stem cells, indicating they likely arose early in animal evolution through hierarchical diversifications. These homologous cell types often substitute paralog expressions at surprising prevalence. Our findings advance the understanding of cell type diversity across the tree of life and the evolution of associated gene expression programs.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Feregrino ◽  
Fabio Sacher ◽  
Oren Parnas ◽  
Patrick Tschopp

AbstractBackgroundThrough precise implementation of distinct cell type specification programs, differentially regulated in both space and time, complex patterns emerge during organogenesis. Thanks to its easy experimental accessibility, the developing chicken limb has long served as a paradigm to study vertebrate pattern formation. Through decades’ worth of research, we now have a firm grasp on the molecular mechanisms driving limb formation at the tissue-level. However, to elucidate the dynamic interplay between transcriptional cell type specification programs and pattern formation at its relevant cellular scale, we lack appropriately resolved molecular data at the genome-wide level. Here, making use of droplet-based single-cell RNA-sequencing, we catalogue the developmental emergence of distinct tissue types and their transcriptome dynamics in the distal chicken limb, the so-called autopod, at cellular resolution.ResultsUsing single-cell RNA-sequencing technology, we sequenced a total of 17,628 cells coming from three key developmental stages of chicken autopod patterning. Overall, we identified 23 cell populations with distinct transcriptional profiles. Amongst them were small, albeit essential populations like the apical ectodermal ridge, demonstrating the ability to detect even rare cell types. Moreover, we uncovered the existence of molecularly distinct sub-populations within previously defined compartments of the developing limb, some of which have important signaling functions during autopod pattern formation. Finally, we inferred gene co-expression modules that coincide with distinct tissue types across developmental time, and used them to track patterning-relevant cell populations of the forming digits.ConclusionsWe provide a comprehensive functional genomics resource to study the molecular effectors of chicken limb patterning at cellular resolution. Our single-cell transcriptomic atlas captures all major cell populations of the developing autopod, and highlights the transcriptional complexity in many of its components. Finally, integrating our data-set with other single-cell transcriptomics resources will enable researchers to assess molecular similarities in orthologous cell types across the major tetrapod clades, and provide an extensive candidate gene list to functionally test cell-type-specific drivers of limb morphological diversification.


Author(s):  
G. Rowden ◽  
M. G. Lewis ◽  
T. M. Phillips

Langerhans cells of mammalian stratified squamous epithelial have proven to be an enigma since their discovery in 1868. These dendritic suprabasal cells have been considered as related to melanocytes either as effete cells, or as post divisional products. Although grafting experiments seemed to demonstrate the independence of the cell types, much confusion still exists. The presence in the epidermis of a cell type with morphological features seemingly shared by melanocytes and Langerhans cells has been especially troublesome. This so called "indeterminate", or " -dendritic cell" lacks both Langerhans cells granules and melanosomes, yet it is clearly not a keratinocyte. Suggestions have been made that it is related to either Langerhans cells or melanocyte. Recent studies have unequivocally demonstrated that Langerhans cells are independent cells with immune function. They display Fc and C3 receptors on their surface as well as la (immune region associated) antigens.


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