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Differentiation dynamics of mammary epithelial cells revealed by single-cell RNA-sequencing

ABSTRACT: The mammary gland is a unique organ as it undergoes most of its development during puberty and adulthood. Characterising the hierarchy of the various mammary epithelial cells and how they are regulated in response to gestation, lactation and involution is important for understanding how breast cancer develops. Recent studies have used numerous markers to enrich, isolate and characterise the different epithelial cell compartments within the adult mammary gland. However, in all of these studies only a handful of markers were used to define and trace cell populations. Therefore, there is a need for an unbiased and comprehensive description of mammary epithelial cells within the gland at different developmental stages. To this end we used single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) to determine the gene expression profile of individual mammary epithelial cells across four adult developmental stages; nulliparous, mid gestation, lactation and post weaning (full natural involution). Our data from 25,010 individual cells identifies 8 distinct mammary epithelial cell populations and allows their hierarchical structure across development to be charted. Interestingly, the effect of gestation and lactation appeared to be more pronounced for some cell types. For example, our analysis revealed a cluster of luminal progenitor cells in post involution glands, which is distinct from progenitors found in nulliparous glands. The data also showed that few clusters could be fully characterized by a single marker gene. We argue instead that the epithelial cells – especially in the luminal compartment – should rather be conceptualized as being part of a continuous spectrum of differentiation. This view highlights the plasticity of the tissue and might help to explain some of the conflicting results from lineage tracing studies.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE106273 | GEO | 2017/12/13

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA416110

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Barcode swapping results in the mislabeling of sequencing reads between multiplexed samples on the new patterned flow cell Illumina sequencing machines. This may compromise the validity of numerous genomic assays, especially for single-cell studies where many samples are routinely multiplexed together. The severity and consequences of barcode swapping for single-cell transcriptomic studies remain poorly understood. We have used two statistical approaches to robustly quantify the fraction of swapped reads in each of two plate-based single-cell RNA sequencing datasets. We found that approximately 2.5% of reads were mislabeled between samples on the HiSeq 4000 machine, which is lower than previous reports. We observed no correlation between the swapped fraction of reads and the concentration of free barcode across plates. Further- more, we have demonstrated that barcode swapping may generate complex but artefactual cell libraries in droplet-based single-cell RNA sequencing studies. To eliminate these artefacts, we have developed an algorithm to exclude individual molecules that have swapped between samples in 10X Genomics experiments, exploiting the combinatorial complexity present in the data. This permits the continued use of cutting-edge sequencing machines for droplet-based experiments while avoiding the confounding effects of barcode swapping. This data repository contains the sequencing files associated with the droplet based scRNA-seq dataset in Griffiths et al. (2018). The data presented here should purely used for technical analysis, the biological motivation is nonetheless briefly described in the following: The mammary gland is a unique organ as it undergoes most of its development during puberty and adulthood. Characterising the hierarchy of the various mammary epithelial cells and how they are regulated in response to gestation, lactation and involution is important for understanding how breast cancer develops. Recent studies have used numerous markers to enrich, isolate and characterise the different epithelial cell compartments within the adult mammary gland. However, in all of these studies only a handful of markers were used to define and trace cell populations. Therefore, there is a need for an unbiased and comprehensive description of mammary epithelial cells within the gland at different developmental stages. To this end we used single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) to determine the gene expression profile of individual mammary epithelial cells across four adult developmental stages; nulliparous, mid gestation, lactation and post weaning (full natural involution).

Project description:Background: The differential expression pattern of microRNAs (miRNAs) during mammary gland development might provide insights into their role in regulating the homeostasis of the breast epithelium. Our aim was to analyse these regulatory functions by deriving a comprehensive tissue-specific combined miRNA and mRNA expression profile of post-natal mouse mammary gland development. We measured the expression of 318 individual murine miRNAs by bead-based flow-cytometric profiling of whole mouse mammary glands throughout a 16-point developmental time course, including juvenile, puberty, mature virgin, gestation, lactation, and involution stages. In parallel whole-genome mRNA expression data were obtained. Results: One third (n = 102) of all murine miRNAs analysed were present during mammary gland development. MicroRNAs were represented in seven temporally co-expressed clusters, which were enriched for both miRNAs belonging to the same family and breast cancer-associated miRNAs. Global miRNA and mRNA expression was significantly reduced during lactation and the early stages of involution after weaning. For most detected miRNA families we did not observe systematic changes in the expression of predicted targets. For miRNA families whose targets did show significant changes, we observed inverse patterns of miRNA and target expression. The datasets are made publicly available and the combined expression profiles represent an important community resource for mammary gland biology research. Conclusions: MicroRNAs were expressed in co-regulated clusters during mammary gland development. Breast cancer-associated miRNAs were significantly enriched in these clusters. The mechanism and functional consequences of this miRNA co-regulation and its correlation with mRNA expression provide new avenues for research into mammary gland biology and generates candidates for functional validation. This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series: GSE15054: Characterisation of microRNA expression in post-natal mouse mammary gland development [gene] GSE15055: Characterisation of microRNA expression in post-natal mouse mammary gland development [miRNA] Refer to individual Series

Project description:Background: The differential expression pattern of microRNAs (miRNAs) during mammary gland development might provide insights into their role in regulating the homeostasis of the breast epithelium. Our aim was to analyse these regulatory functions by deriving a comprehensive tissue-specific combined miRNA and mRNA expression profile of post-natal mouse mammary gland development. We measured the expression of 318 individual murine miRNAs by bead-based flow-cytometric profiling of whole mouse mammary glands throughout a 16-point developmental time course, including juvenile, puberty, mature virgin, gestation, lactation, and involution stages. In parallel whole-genome mRNA expression data were obtained. Results: One third (n = 102) of all murine miRNAs analysed were present during mammary gland development. MicroRNAs were represented in seven temporally co-expressed clusters, which were enriched for both miRNAs belonging to the same family and breast cancer-associated miRNAs. Global miRNA and mRNA expression was significantly reduced during lactation and the early stages of involution after weaning. For most detected miRNA families we did not observe systematic changes in the expression of predicted targets. For miRNA families whose targets did show significant changes, we observed inverse patterns of miRNA and target expression. The datasets are made publicly available and the combined expression profiles represent an important community resource for mammary gland biology research. Conclusions: MicroRNAs were expressed in co-regulated clusters during mammary gland development. Breast cancer-associated miRNAs were significantly enriched in these clusters. The mechanism and functional consequences of this miRNA co-regulation and its correlation with mRNA expression provide new avenues for research into mammary gland biology and generates candidates for functional validation. Developmental time course over 17 time points with 2-3 independent biological replicates per time point and four pairs of technical replicates, 48 samples in total

Project description:Background: The differential expression pattern of microRNAs (miRNAs) during mammary gland development might provide insights into their role in regulating the homeostasis of the breast epithelium. Our aim was to analyse these regulatory functions by deriving a comprehensive tissue-specific combined miRNA and mRNA expression profile of post-natal mouse mammary gland development. We measured the expression of 318 individual murine miRNAs by bead-based flow-cytometric profiling of whole mouse mammary glands throughout a 16-point developmental time course, including juvenile, puberty, mature virgin, gestation, lactation, and involution stages. In parallel whole-genome mRNA expression data were obtained. Results: One third (n = 102) of all murine miRNAs analysed were present during mammary gland development. MicroRNAs were represented in seven temporally co-expressed clusters, which were enriched for both miRNAs belonging to the same family and breast cancer-associated miRNAs. Global miRNA and mRNA expression was significantly reduced during lactation and the early stages of involution after weaning. For most detected miRNA families we did not observe systematic changes in the expression of predicted targets. For miRNA families whose targets did show significant changes, we observed inverse patterns of miRNA and target expression. The datasets are made publicly available and the combined expression profiles represent an important community resource for mammary gland biology research. Conclusions: MicroRNAs were expressed in co-regulated clusters during mammary gland development. Breast cancer-associated miRNAs were significantly enriched in these clusters. The mechanism and functional consequences of this miRNA co-regulation and its correlation with mRNA expression provide new avenues for research into mammary gland biology and generates candidates for functional validation. Developmental time course over 16 time points with 1-3 independent biological replicates per time point and three pairs of technical replicates, 40 samples in total

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Differentiation dynamics of mammary epithelial cells revealed by single-cell RNA-sequencing

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