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Size-dependent temporal decoupling of morphogenesis and transcriptional programs in pseudo-embryos [scRNA-seq]

ABSTRACT: Understanding the interplay between cell fate specification and morphogenetic changes remains a central challenge in developmental biology. Gastruloids, self-organizing pseudo-embryos that mimic post-implantation mammalian development, provide a powerful platform to address this question. Here, we show that physical parameters, particularly system size, critically influence the timing and outcomes of morphogenetic processes. Larger gastruloids exhibit delayed symmetry breaking, increased multipolarity, and prolonged axial elongation, with morphogenesis driven by system size. Despite these variations, transcriptional programs and cell fate composition remain remarkably stable across a broad size range. Notably, extreme sizes show distinct transcriptional modules and clear shifts in gene expression patterns. Intriguingly, size perturbation experiments rescued the morphogenetic and pattern phenotypes observed in extreme sizes, demonstrating the remarkable adaptability of gastruloids to their effective system size. These findings establish gastruloids as versatile models for studying spatiotemporal dynamics in mammalian embryogenesis and reveal how physical constraints decouple transcriptional from morphogenetic programs.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE286273 | GEO | 2025/05/07

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Background Appropriate social interactions influence animal fitness by impacting several processes, such as mating, territory defense, and offspring care. Many studies shedding light on the neurobiological underpinnings of social behavior have focused on nonapeptides (vasopressin, oxytocin, and homologues) and on sexual or parent-offspring interactions. Furthermore, animals have been studied under artificial laboratory conditions, where the consequences of behavioral responses may not be as critical as when expressed under natural environments, therefore obscuring certain physiological responses. We used automated recording of social interactions of wild house mice outside of the breeding season to detect individuals at both tails of a distribution of egocentric network sizes (characterized by number of different partners encountered per day). We then used RNA-seq to perform an unbiased assessment of neural differences in gene expression in the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus and the hypothalamus between these mice with naturally occurring extreme differences in social network size. Results We found that the neurogenomic pathways associated with having extreme social network sizes differed between the sexes. In females, hundreds of genes were differentially expressed between animals with small and large social network sizes, whereas in males very few were. In males, X-chromosome inactivation pathways in the prefrontal cortex were the ones that better differentiated animals with small from those with large social network sizes animals. In females, animals with small network size showed up-regulation of dopaminergic production and transport pathways in the hypothalamus. Additionally, in females, extracellular matrix deposition on hippocampal neurons was higher in individuals with small relative to large social network size. Conclusions Studying neural substrates of natural variation in social behavior in traditional model organisms in their habitat can open new targets of research for understanding variation in social behavior in other taxa.

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Size-dependent temporal decoupling of morphogenesis and transcriptional programs in pseudo-embryos [scRNA-seq]

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