CNS myeloid cell heterogeneity at the single-cell level

Neuroforum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-204
Author(s):  
Chotima Böttcher ◽  
Roman Sankowski ◽  
Josef Priller ◽  
Marco Prinz

Abstract The cellular composition of the central nervous system (CNS) is highly complex and dynamic. Regulation of this complexity is increasingly recognized to be spatially and temporally dependent during development, homeostasis and disease. Context-dependent cellular heterogeneity was shown for neuroectodermal cells as well as the myeloid compartment of the CNS. The brain myeloid compartment comprises microglia and other CNS-associated macrophages. These are brain-resident cells with critical roles in brain development, maintenance, and immune responses during states of disease. Profiling of CNS myeloid cell heterogeneity has been greatly facilitated in the past years by development of high-throughput technologies for single-cell analysis. This review summarizes current insights into heterogeneity of the CNS myeloid cell population determined by single-cell RNA sequencing and mass cytometry. The results offer invaluable insights into CNS biology and will facilitate the development of therapies for neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory pathologies.

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (Supplement_3) ◽  
pp. iii406-iii406
Author(s):  
Andrew Donson ◽  
Kent Riemondy ◽  
Sujatha Venkataraman ◽  
Ahmed Gilani ◽  
Bridget Sanford ◽  
...  

Abstract We explored cellular heterogeneity in medulloblastoma using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq), immunohistochemistry and deconvolution of bulk transcriptomic data. Over 45,000 cells from 31 patients from all main subgroups of medulloblastoma (2 WNT, 10 SHH, 9 GP3, 11 GP4 and 1 GP3/4) were clustered using Harmony alignment to identify conserved subpopulations. Each subgroup contained subpopulations exhibiting mitotic, undifferentiated and neuronal differentiated transcript profiles, corroborating other recent medulloblastoma scRNAseq studies. The magnitude of our present study builds on the findings of existing studies, providing further characterization of conserved neoplastic subpopulations, including identification of a photoreceptor-differentiated subpopulation that was predominantly, but not exclusively, found in GP3 medulloblastoma. Deconvolution of MAGIC transcriptomic cohort data showed that neoplastic subpopulations are associated with major and minor subgroup subdivisions, for example, photoreceptor subpopulation cells are more abundant in GP3-alpha. In both GP3 and GP4, higher proportions of undifferentiated subpopulations is associated with shorter survival and conversely, differentiated subpopulation is associated with longer survival. This scRNAseq dataset also afforded unique insights into the immune landscape of medulloblastoma, and revealed an M2-polarized myeloid subpopulation that was restricted to SHH medulloblastoma. Additionally, we performed scRNAseq on 16,000 cells from genetically engineered mouse (GEM) models of GP3 and SHH medulloblastoma. These models showed a level of fidelity with corresponding human subgroup-specific neoplastic and immune subpopulations. Collectively, our findings advance our understanding of the neoplastic and immune landscape of the main medulloblastoma subgroups in both humans and GEM models.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rongxin Fang ◽  
Sebastian Preissl ◽  
Yang Li ◽  
Xiaomeng Hou ◽  
Jacinta Lucero ◽  
...  

AbstractIdentification of the cis-regulatory elements controlling cell-type specific gene expression patterns is essential for understanding the origin of cellular diversity. Conventional assays to map regulatory elements via open chromatin analysis of primary tissues is hindered by sample heterogeneity. Single cell analysis of accessible chromatin (scATAC-seq) can overcome this limitation. However, the high-level noise of each single cell profile and the large volume of data pose unique computational challenges. Here, we introduce SnapATAC, a software package for analyzing scATAC-seq datasets. SnapATAC dissects cellular heterogeneity in an unbiased manner and map the trajectories of cellular states. Using the Nyström method, SnapATAC can process data from up to a million cells. Furthermore, SnapATAC incorporates existing tools into a comprehensive package for analyzing single cell ATAC-seq dataset. As demonstration of its utility, SnapATAC is applied to 55,592 single-nucleus ATAC-seq profiles from the mouse secondary motor cortex. The analysis reveals ~370,000 candidate regulatory elements in 31 distinct cell populations in this brain region and inferred candidate cell-type specific transcriptional regulators.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (13) ◽  
pp. 5979-5984 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahui Ji ◽  
Dongyuan Qi ◽  
Linmei Li ◽  
Haoran Su ◽  
Xiaojie Li ◽  
...  

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are important intercellular mediators regulating health and diseases. Conventional methods for EV surface marker profiling, which was based on population measurements, masked the cell-to-cell heterogeneity in the quantity and phenotypes of EV secretion. Herein, by using spatially patterned antibody barcodes, we realized multiplexed profiling of single-cell EV secretion from more than 1,000 single cells simultaneously. Applying this platform to profile human oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell lines led to a deep understanding of previously undifferentiated single-cell heterogeneity underlying EV secretion. Notably, we observed that the decrement of certain EV phenotypes (e.g.,CD63+EV) was associated with the invasive feature of both OSCC cell lines and primary OSCC cells. We also realized multiplexed detection of EV secretion and cytokines secretion simultaneously from the same single cells to investigate the multidimensional spectrum of cellular communications, from which we resolved tiered functional subgroups with distinct secretion profiles by visualized clustering and principal component analysis. In particular, we found that different cell subgroups dominated EV secretion and cytokine secretion. The technology introduced here enables a comprehensive evaluation of EV secretion heterogeneity at single-cell level, which may become an indispensable tool to complement current single-cell analysis and EV research.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luipa Khandker ◽  
Marisa A. Jeffries ◽  
Yun-Juan Chang ◽  
Marie L. Mather ◽  
Jennifer N. Bourne ◽  
...  

AbstractBrain and spinal cord oligodendroglia have distinct functional characteristics, and cell autonomous loss of individual genes can result in different regional phenotypes. However, sequencing studies to date have not revealed distinctions between brain and spinal cord oligodendroglia. Using single-cell analysis of oligodendroglia during myelination, we demonstrate that brain and spinal cord precursors are transcriptionally distinct, defined predominantly by cholesterol biosynthesis. We further identify mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) as a major regulator promoting cholesterol biosynthesis in oligodendroglia. Oligodendroglial-specific loss of mTOR compromises cholesterol biosynthesis in both the brain and spinal cord. Importantly, mTOR loss has a greater impact on cholesterol biosynthesis in spinal cord oligodendroglia that corresponds with more pronounced developmental deficits. However, loss of mTOR in brain oligodendroglia ultimately results in oligodendrocyte death, spontaneous demyelination, and impaired axonal function, demonstrating that mTOR is required for myelin maintenance in the adult brain.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Kakava-Georgiadou ◽  
J.F. Severens ◽  
A.M. Jørgensen ◽  
K.M. Garner ◽  
M.C.M Luijendijk ◽  
...  

AbstractHypothalamic nuclei which regulate homeostatic functions express leptin receptor (LepR), the primary target of the satiety hormone leptin. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has facilitated the discovery of a variety of hypothalamic cell types. However, low abundance of LepR transcripts prevented further characterization of LepR cells. Therefore, we perform scRNA-seq on isolated LepR cells and identify eight neuronal clusters, including three uncharacterized Trh-expressing populations as well as 17 non-neuronal populations including tanycytes, oligodendrocytes and endothelial cells. Food restriction had a major impact on Agrp neurons and changed the expression of obesity-associated genes. Multiple cell clusters were enriched for GWAS signals of obesity. We further explored changes in the gene regulatory landscape of LepR cell types. We thus reveal the molecular signature of distinct populations with diverse neurochemical profiles, which will aid efforts to illuminate the multi-functional nature of leptin’s action in the hypothalamus.


2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (9) ◽  
pp. e00179-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiu Xin ◽  
Hailong Wang ◽  
Lingling Han ◽  
Mingzhen Wang ◽  
Hui Fang ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTViral infection and replication are affected by host cell heterogeneity, but the mechanisms underlying the effects remain unclear. Using single-cell analysis, we investigated the effects of host cell heterogeneity, including cell size, inclusion, and cell cycle, on foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) infection (acute and persistent infections) and replication. We detected various viral genome replication levels in FMDV-infected cells. Large cells and cells with a high number of inclusions generated more viral RNA copies and viral protein and a higher proportion of infectious cells than other cells. Additionally, we found that the viral titer was 10- to 100-fold higher in cells in G2/M than those in other cell cycle phases and identified a strong correlation between cell size, inclusion, and cell cycle heterogeneity, which all affected the infection and replication of FMDV. Furthermore, we demonstrated that host cell heterogeneity influenced the adsorption of FMDV due to differences in the levels of FMDV integrin receptors expression. Collectively, these results further our understanding of the evolution of a virus in a single host cell.IMPORTANCEIt is important to understand how host cell heterogeneity affects viral infection and replication. Using single-cell analysis, we found that viral genome replication levels exhibited dramatic variability in foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV)-infected cells. We also found a strong correlation between heterogeneity in cell size, inclusion number, and cell cycle status and that all of these characteristics affect the infection and replication of FMDV. Moreover, we found that host cell heterogeneity influenced the viral adsorption as differences in the levels of FMDV integrin receptors' expression. This study provided new ideas for the studies of correlation between FMDV infection mechanisms and host cells.


2021 ◽  
Vol 218 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoshi Nakamizo ◽  
Charles-Antoine Dutertre ◽  
Ahad Khalilnezhad ◽  
Xiao Meng Zhang ◽  
Shawn Lim ◽  
...  

Inflammatory skin diseases including atopic dermatitis (AD) and psoriasis (PSO) are underpinned by dendritic cell (DC)–mediated T cell responses. Currently, the heterogeneous human cutaneous DC population is incompletely characterized, and its contribution to these diseases remains unclear. Here, we performed index-sorted single-cell flow cytometry and RNA sequencing of lesional and nonlesional AD and PSO skin to identify macrophages and all DC subsets, including the newly described mature LAMP3+BIRC3+ DCs enriched in immunoregulatory molecules (mregDC) and CD14+ DC3. By integrating our indexed data with published skin datasets, we generated a myeloid cell universe of DC and macrophage subsets in healthy and diseased skin. Importantly, we found that CD14+ DC3s increased in PSO lesional skin and co-produced IL1B and IL23A, which are pathological in PSO. Our study comprehensively describes the molecular characteristics of macrophages and DC subsets in AD and PSO at single-cell resolution, and identifies CD14+ DC3s as potential promoters of inflammation in PSO.


Cells ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weikang Nicholas Lin ◽  
Matthew Zirui Tay ◽  
Ri Lu ◽  
Yi Liu ◽  
Chia-Hung Chen ◽  
...  

The advent of single-cell research in the recent decade has allowed biological studies at an unprecedented resolution and scale. In particular, single-cell analysis techniques such as Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) have helped show substantial links between cellular heterogeneity and infectious disease progression. The extensive characterization of genomic and phenotypic biomarkers, in addition to host–pathogen interactions at the single-cell level, has resulted in the discovery of previously unknown infection mechanisms as well as potential treatment options. In this article, we review the various single-cell technologies and their applications in the ongoing fight against infectious diseases, as well as discuss the potential opportunities for future development.


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