Project description:Understanding underlying mechanisms responsible for the differentiation and stemness of mouse mammary progenitor cells are paramount to understanding the heterogeneity of mammary development and tumorigenesis. Consequently, studies have isolated and characterized mouse mammary progenitor cell lines such as: COMMA-1D, NSP2 and SP3, but have not parsed the various transcriptomes that play a role in progenitor differentiation and mammary gland development.
Project description:RNA-seq of embryonic mammary progenitor cell lines. Embryonic mammary progenitor cell (eMPC) clones were derived from E12.5-stage mammary organs. After microdissection, mammary primordial 3 was cultured on thick basement membrane extract for 4 weeks. After enzymatic dissociation eMPC swere plated and expanded in 2D culture to obtain a pool of eMPCs. eMPC cells were subject to single cell sorting using FACS. Clones were expanded as single-cell derived clones (eMPC1, 2, etc.) to create the eighteen single cell-derived clones described in this study.
Project description:Fate and behaviour of neural progenitor cells is tightly regulated during mammalian brain development. Metabolic pathways, such as glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation, that are required for supplying energy and providing molecular building blocks to generate cells, govern progenitor function. However, the role of de novo lipogenesis, which is the conversion of glucose into fatty acids through the multi-enzyme protein fatty acid synthase (FASN), for brain development remains unknown. Using Emx1Cre-mediated, tissue-specific deletion of Fasn in the mouse embryonic telencephalon, we show that loss of FASN causes severe microcephaly, largely due to altered polarity of apical, radial glia progenitors (APs) and reduced progenitor proliferation. Further, genetic deletion and pharmacological inhibition of FASN in human embryonic stem cell (ESC)-derived forebrain organoids identifies a conserved role of FASN-dependent lipogenesis for radial glia cell polarity and progenitor expansion in the developing human forebrain. Thus, our data establish a role of de novo lipogenesis for mouse and human brain development and identify a link between progenitor cell polarity and lipid metabolism.
Project description:Single cell-based studies have revealed tremendous cellular heterogeneity in stem cell and progenitor compartments, suggesting continuous differentiation trajectories with intermixing of cells at various states of lineage commitment and notable degree of plasticity during organogenesis. The hepato-pancreato-biliary organ system relies on a small endoderm progenitor compartment that gives rise to a variety of different adult tissues, including liver, pancreas, gallbladder, and extra-hepatic bile ducts. Experimental manipulation of various developmental signals in the mouse embryo underscored important cellular plasticity in this embryonic territory. This is also reflected in the existence of human genetic syndromes as well as congenital or environmentally-caused human malformations featuring multiorgan phenotypes in liver, pancreas and gallbladder. Nevertheless, the precise lineage hierarchy and succession of events leading to the segregation of an endoderm progenitor compartment into hepatic, biliary, and pancreatic structures are not yet established. Here, we combine computational modelling approaches with genetic lineage tracing to assess the tissue dynamics accompanying the ontogeny of the hepato-pancreato-biliary organ system. We show that a multipotent progenitor domain persists at the border between liver and pancreas, even after pancreatic fate is specified, contributing to the formation of several organ derivatives, including the liver. Moreover, using single-cell RNA sequencing we define a specialized niche that possibly supports such extended cell fate plasticity.