A 3D system to model human pancreas development and its reference single-cell transcriptome atlas identify signaling pathways required for progenitor expansion
Abstract Human organogenesis remains relatively unexplored for ethical and practical reasons. Here we report the establishment of a single cell transcriptome atlas of the human fetal pancreas between 7 and 10 post-conceptional weeks of development. To interrogate cell-cell interactions we developed InterCom, an R-Package for identifying receptors-ligand pairs and their downstream effects. We further report the establishment of a human pancreas culture system starting from fetal tissue or human pluripotent stem cells, enabling the long-term maintenance of pancreas progenitors in a minimal, defined medium in three-dimensions. Benchmarking the cells produced in 2D and those expanded in 3D to fetal tissue reveals that progenitors expanded in 3D are transcriptionally closer to the fetal pancreas. We further demonstrate the potential of this system as a screening platform and identify the importance of the EGF and FGF pathways controlling human pancreas progenitor expansion.