scholarly journals Single cell transcriptional signatures of the human placenta in term and preterm parturition

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Pique-Regi ◽  
Roberto Romero ◽  
Adi L Tarca ◽  
Edward D Sendler ◽  
Yi Xu ◽  
...  

More than 135 million births occur each year; yet, the molecular underpinnings of human parturition in gestational tissues, and in particular the placenta, are still poorly understood. The placenta is a complex heterogeneous organ including cells of both maternal and fetal origin, and insults that disrupt the maternal-fetal dialogue could result in adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preterm birth. There is limited knowledge of the cell type composition and transcriptional activity of the placenta and its compartments during physiologic and pathologic parturition. To fill this knowledge gap, we used scRNA-seq to profile the placental villous tree, basal plate, and chorioamniotic membranes of women with or without labor at term and those with preterm labor. Significant differences in cell type composition and transcriptional profiles were found among placental compartments and across study groups. For the first time, two cell types were identified: 1) lymphatic endothelial decidual cells in the chorioamniotic membranes, and 2) non-proliferative interstitial cytotrophoblasts in the placental villi. Maternal macrophages from the chorioamniotic membranes displayed the largest differences in gene expression (e.g. NFKB1) in both processes of labor; yet, specific gene expression changes were also detected in preterm labor. Importantly, several placental scRNA-seq transcriptional signatures were modulated with advancing gestation in the maternal circulation, and specific immune cell type signatures were increased with labor at term (NK-cell and activated T-cell signatures) and with preterm labor (macrophage, monocyte, and activated T-cell signatures). Herein, we provide a catalogue of cell types and transcriptional profiles in the human placenta, shedding light on the molecular underpinnings and non-invasive prediction of the physiologic and pathologic parturition.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Pique-Regi ◽  
Roberto Romero ◽  
Adi L.Tarca ◽  
Edward D. Sendler ◽  
Yi Xu ◽  
...  

AbstractMore than 135 million births occur each year; yet, the molecular underpinnings of human parturition in gestational tissues, and in particular the placenta, are still poorly understood. The placenta is a complex heterogeneous organ including cells of both maternal and fetal origin, and insults that disrupt the maternal-fetal dialogue could result in adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preterm birth. There is limited knowledge of the cell type composition and transcriptional activity of the placenta and its compartments during physiologic and pathologic parturition. To fill this knowledge gap, we used scRNA-seq to profile the placental villous tree, basal plate, and chorioamniotic membranes of women with or without labor at term and those with preterm labor. Significant differences in cell type composition and transcriptional profiles were found among placental compartments and across study groups. For the first time, two cell types were identified: 1) lymphatic endothelial decidual cells in the chorioamniotic membranes, and 2) non-proliferative interstitial cytotrophoblasts in the placental villi. Maternal macrophages from the chorioamniotic membranes displayed the largest differences in gene expression (e.g. NFKB1) in both processes of labor; yet, specific gene expression changes were also detected in preterm labor. Importantly, several placental scRNA-seq transcriptional signatures were modulated with advancing gestation in the maternal circulation, and specific immune cell type signatures were increased with labor at term (NK-cell and activated T-cell) and with preterm labor (macrophage, monocyte, and activated T-cell). Herein, we provide a catalogue of cell types and transcriptional profiles in the human placenta, shedding light on the molecular underpinnings and non-invasive prediction of the physiologic and pathologic parturition.One sentence summaryThe common molecular pathway of parturition for both term and preterm spontaneous labor is characterized using single cell gene expression analysis of the human placenta.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S043-S043
Author(s):  
W Uniken Venema ◽  
A Bangma ◽  
M Van der Wijst ◽  
G Kats-Ugurlu ◽  
J Bjork ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is an inflammatory disorder of the bile ducts. The etiology of PSC is unknown, but it is hypothesized that intestinal barrier dysfunction, as seen in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), plays a role. Roughly 75% of PSC patients have concomitant IBD (PSC-IBD). PSC-IBD is phenotypically different from ulcerative colitis (UC) with predominantly right-sided disease and a higher risk for colorectal cancer. In this study we aim aim to find probable distinct pathomechanisms for PSC-IBD, by comparing gut mucosal biopsies between PSC-IBD and UC using single-cell RNA sequencing. Methods 47 gut mucosal samples from the colon of subjects with either PSC-IBD (n=24), UC (n=18) or non-IBD control (n=5) were collected, from which 28 were paired inflamed and non-inflamed. Whole biopsies were cryopreserved and dissociated into single cells using collagenase digestion. Library preparation was done using the 10x Genomics system and subsequent sequencing was performed on an MGI2000 sequencer. The ‘Seurat’ R package was used for analysis. Results A total of 75.078 high quality cells identified 38 distinct cell types. No differences in cell type composition were observed between PSC-IBD and UC. We did see different cell type composition and gene expression between inflamed and non-inflamed samples. For example, in PSC-IBD specifically, an enterocyte subtype defined by DUOX2-expression showed inflammatory pathways upon inflammation. UC inflammation, on the other hand, was characterized by involvement of BEST4+ enterocytes and inflammatory fibroblasts. In addition, activated B cells and IgA plasma cells expressed stress-related genes in PSC, but not in UC inflammation. Conclusion We show that intestinal inflammation in PSC-IBD is characterized by distinct, cell-specific gene expression patterns as compared to UC. This highlights differential cell types mediating inflammation between these IBDs. Our study provides insight in cellular mechanisms underlying intestinal disease in PSC, and may serve as a starting point for further studies, for example on the functions of DUOX2+ enterocytes.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Hastings Hagenauer ◽  
Anton Schulmann ◽  
Jun Z. Li ◽  
Marquis P. Vawter ◽  
David M. Walsh ◽  
...  

AbstractPsychiatric illness is unlikely to arise from pathology occurring uniformly across all cell types in affected brain regions. Despite this, transcriptomic analyses of the human brain have typically been conducted using macro-dissected tissue due to the difficulty of performing single-cell type analyses with donated post-mortem brains. To address this issue statistically, we compiled a database of several thousand transcripts that were specifically-enriched in one of 10 primary cortical cell types in previous publications. Using this database, we predicted the relative cell type composition for 833 human cortical samples using microarray or RNA-Seq data from the Pritzker Consortium (GSE92538) or publicly-available databases (GSE53987, GSE21935, GSE21138, CommonMind Consortium). These predictions were generated by averaging normalized expression levels across transcripts specific to each cell type using our R-packageBrainInABlender(validated and publicly-released:https://github.com/hagenaue/BrainInABlender). Using this method, we found that the principal components of variation in the datasets strongly correlated with the neuron to glia ratio of the samples.This variability was not simply due to dissection – the relative balance of brain cell types appeared to be influenced by a variety of demographic, pre- and post-mortem variables. Prolonged hypoxia around the time of death predicted increased astrocytic and endothelial gene expression, illustrating vascular upregulation. Aging was associated with decreased neuronal gene expression. Red blood cell gene expression was reduced in individuals who died following systemic blood loss. Subjects with Major Depressive Disorder had decreased astrocytic gene expression, mirroring previous morphometric observations. Subjects with Schizophrenia had reduced red blood cell gene expression, resembling the hypofrontality detected in fMRI experiments. Finally, in datasets containing samples with especially variable cell content, we found that controlling for predicted sample cell content while evaluating differential expression improved the detection of previously-identified psychiatric effects. We conclude that accounting for cell type can greatly improve the interpretability of transcriptomic data.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 2721-2728 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. De Jong ◽  
M. Neeleman ◽  
J. J. Luykx ◽  
M. J. Ten Berg ◽  
E. Strengman ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianthi Kalafati ◽  
Michael Lenz ◽  
Gökhan Ertaylan ◽  
Ilja C. W. Arts ◽  
Chris T. Evelo ◽  
...  

Background: Macrophages play an important role in regulating adipose tissue function, while their frequencies in adipose tissue vary between individuals. Adipose tissue infiltration by high frequencies of macrophages has been linked to changes in adipokine levels and low-grade inflammation, frequently associated with the progression of obesity. The objective of this project was to assess the contribution of relative macrophage frequencies to the overall subcutaneous adipose tissue gene expression using publicly available datasets.Methods: Seven publicly available microarray gene expression datasets from human subcutaneous adipose tissue biopsies (n = 519) were used together with TissueDecoder to determine the adipose tissue cell-type composition of each sample. We divided the subjects in four groups based on their relative macrophage frequencies. Differential gene expression analysis between the high and low relative macrophage frequencies groups was performed, adjusting for sex and study. Finally, biological processes were identified using pathway enrichment and network analysis.Results: We observed lower frequencies of adipocytes and higher frequencies of adipose stem cells in individuals characterized by high macrophage frequencies. We additionally studied whether, within subcutaneous adipose tissue, interindividual differences in the relative frequencies of macrophages were reflected in transcriptional differences in metabolic and inflammatory pathways. Adipose tissue of individuals with high macrophage frequencies had a higher expression of genes involved in complement activation, chemotaxis, focal adhesion, and oxidative stress. Similarly, we observed a lower expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism, fatty acid synthesis, and oxidation and mitochondrial respiration.Conclusion: We present an approach that combines publicly available subcutaneous adipose tissue gene expression datasets with a deconvolution algorithm to calculate subcutaneous adipose tissue cell-type composition. The results showed the expected increased inflammation gene expression profile accompanied by decreased gene expression in pathways related to lipid metabolism and mitochondrial respiration in subcutaneous adipose tissue in individuals characterized by high macrophage frequencies. This approach demonstrates the hidden strength of reusing publicly available data to gain cell-type-specific insights into adipose tissue function.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura E. Sanman ◽  
Ina W. Chen ◽  
Jake M. Bieber ◽  
Veronica Steri ◽  
Byron Hann ◽  
...  

AbstractRenewing tissues have the remarkable ability to continually produce both proliferative progenitor and specialized differentiated cell-types. How are complex milieus of microenvironmental signals interpreted to coordinate tissue cell-type composition? Here, we develop a high-throughput approach that combines organoid technology and quantitative imaging to address this question in the context of the intestinal epithelium. Using this approach, we comprehensively survey enteroid responses to individual and paired perturbations to eight epithelial signaling pathways. We uncover culture conditions that enrich for specific cell-types, including Lgr5+ stem and enteroendocrine cells. We analyze interactions between perturbations and dissect mechanisms underlying an unexpected mutual antagonism between EGFR and IL-4 signals. Finally, we show that, across diverse perturbations, modulating proliferation of transit-amplifying cells also consistently changes the composition of differentiated secretory and absorptive cell-types. This property is conserved in vivo and can arise from differential amplification of secretory and absorptive progenitor cells. Taken together, the observations highlight an underappreciated role for transit-amplifying cells in which proliferation of these short-lived progenitors provides a lineage-based mechanism for tuning differentiated cell-type composition.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunhee Jeong ◽  
Reka Toth ◽  
Marlene Ganslmeier ◽  
Kersten Breuer ◽  
Christoph Plass ◽  
...  

DNA methylation sequencing is becoming increasingly popular, yielding genome-wide methylome data at single-base pair resolution through the novel cost- and labor-optimized protocols. It has tremendous potential for cell-type heterogeneity analysis, particularly in tumors, due to intrinsic read-level information. Although diverse deconvolution methods were developed to infer cell-type composition based on bulk sequencing-based methylomes, their systematic evaluation has not been performed so far. Here, we thoroughly review and evaluate five previously published deconvolution methods: Bayesian epiallele detection (BED), PRISM, csmFinder + coMethy, ClubCpG and MethylPurify, together with two array-based methods, MeDeCom and Houseman as a comparison group. Sequencing-based deconvolution methods consist of two main steps, informative region selection and cell-type composition estimation. Accordingly, we individually assessed the performance of each step and demonstrated the impact of the former step upon the performance of the following one. In conclusion, we demonstrate the best method showing the highest accuracy in different samples, and infer factors affecting cell-type deconvolution performance according to the number of cell types in the mixture. We found that cell-type deconvolution performance is influenced by different factors according to the number of components in the mixture. Whereas selecting similar genomic regions to DMRs generally contributed to increasing the performance in bi-component mixtures, the uniformity of cell-type distribution showed a high correlation with the performance in five cell-type bulk analyses.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lenz ◽  
Ilja C.W. Arts ◽  
Ralf L.M. Peeters ◽  
Theo M. de Kok ◽  
Gökhan Ertaylan

AbstractBackgroundHighly specialized cells work in synergy forming tissues to perform functions required for the survival of organisms. Understanding this tissue-specific cellular heterogeneity and homeostasis is essential to comprehend the development of diseases within the tissue and also for developing regenerative therapies. Cellular subpopulations in the adipose tissue have been related to disease development, but efforts towards characterizing the adipose tissue cell type composition are limited due to lack of robust cell surface markers, limited access to tissue samples, and the labor-intensive process required to identify them.ResultsWe propose a framework, identifying cellular heterogeneity while providing state-of-the-art cellular markers for each cell type present in tissues using transcriptomics level analysis. We validate our approach with an independent dataset and present the most comprehensive study of adipose tissue cell type composition to date, determining the relative amounts of 21 different cell types in 779 adipose tissue samples detailing differences across four adipose tissue depots, between genders, across ranges of BMI and in different stages of type-2 diabetes. We also highlight the heterogeneity in reported marker-based studies of adipose tissue cell type composition and provide novel cellular markers to distinguish different cell types within the adipose tissue.ConclusionsOur study provides a systematic framework for studying cell type composition in a given tissue and valuable insights into adipose tissue cell type heterogeneity in health and disease.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenjing Ma ◽  
Sumeet Sharma ◽  
Peng Jin ◽  
Shannon L Gourley ◽  
Zhaohui Qin

The rapid proliferation of single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) datasets have revealed cell heterogeneity at unprecedented scales. Several deconvolution methods have been developed to decompose bulk experiments to reveal cell type contributions. However, these methods lack power in identifying the accurate cell type composition when having a considerable amount of sub-cell types in the reference dataset. Here, we present LRcell, a R Bioconductor package (http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/LRcell.html) aiming to identify specific sub-cell type(s) that drives the changes observed in a bulk RNA-seq differential gene expression experiment. In addition, LRcell provides pre-embedded marker genes computed from putative single-cell RNA-seq experiments as options to execute the analyses.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan R. Farnsworth ◽  
Lauren Saunders ◽  
Adam C. Miller

ABSTRACTThe ability to define cell types and how they change during organogenesis is central to our understanding of animal development and human disease. Despite the crucial nature of this knowledge, we have yet to fully characterize all distinct cell types and the gene expression differences that generate cell types during development. To address this knowledge gap, we produced an Atlas using single-cell RNA-sequencing methods to investigate gene expression from the pharyngula to early larval stages in developing zebrafish. Our single-cell transcriptome Atlas encompasses transcriptional profiles from 44,102 cells across four days of development using duplicate experiments that confirmed high reproducibility. We annotated 220 identified clusters and highlighted several strategies for interrogating changes in gene expression associated with the development of zebrafish embryos at single-cell resolution. Furthermore, we highlight the power of this analysis to assign new cell-type or developmental stage-specific expression information to many genes, including those that are currently known only by sequence and/or that lack expression information altogether. The resulting Atlas is a resource of biologists to generate hypotheses for genetic (mutant) or functional analysis, to launch an effort to define the diversity of cell-types during zebrafish organogenesis, and to examine the transcriptional profiles that produce each cell type over developmental time.


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