Biologically indeterminate yet ordered promiscuous gene expression in single medullary thymic epithelial cells

Autor: Stefano Maio, Jeanette Baran-Gale, Chris P. Ponting, Fatima Dhalla, Lia Chappell, Georg A. Holländer
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
central T‐cell tolerance
Medullary cavity
Immunology
Thymus Gland
autoimmune regulator
Biology
Chromatin
Epigenetics
Genomics & Functional Genomics

Article
General Biochemistry
Genetics and Molecular Biology

Biological pathway
Transcriptome
Negative selection
Mice
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Antigen
thymus
Gene expression
Animals
promiscuous gene expression
Molecular Biology
Gene
030304 developmental biology
medullary thymic epithelial cells
Mice
Inbred BALB C

0303 health sciences
General Immunology and Microbiology
Gene Expression Profiling
General Neuroscience
TSPAN8
Cell Differentiation
Epithelial Cells
Articles
Autoimmune regulator
Cell biology
Mice
Inbred C57BL

Organ Specificity
Female
Single-Cell Analysis
Indeterminate
Biomarkers
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
030215 immunology
Zdroj: Dhalla, F, Baran-Gale, J, Maio, S, Chappell, L, Holländer, G A & Ponting, C P 2020, ' Biologically indeterminate yet ordered promiscuous gene expression in single medullary thymic epithelial cells ', EMBO Journal, vol. 39, e101828 . https://doi.org/10.15252/embj.2019101828
The EMBO Journal
DOI: 10.1101/554899
Popis: To induce central T‐cell tolerance, medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTEC) collectively express most protein‐coding genes, thereby presenting an extensive library of tissue‐restricted antigens (TRAs). To resolve mTEC diversity and whether promiscuous gene expression (PGE) is stochastic or coordinated, we sequenced transcriptomes of 6,894 single mTEC, enriching for 1,795 rare cells expressing either of two TRAs, TSPAN8 or GP2. Transcriptional heterogeneity allowed partitioning of mTEC into 15 reproducible subpopulations representing distinct maturational trajectories, stages and subtypes, including novel mTEC subsets, such as chemokine‐expressing and ciliated TEC, which warrant further characterisation. Unexpectedly, 50 modules of genes were robustly defined each showing patterns of co‐expression within individual cells, which were mainly not explicable by chromosomal location, biological pathway or tissue specificity. Further, TSPAN8+ and GP2+ mTEC were randomly dispersed within thymic medullary islands. Consequently, these data support observations that PGE exhibits ordered co‐expression, although mechanisms underlying this instruction remain biologically indeterminate. Ordered co‐expression and random spatial distribution of a diverse range of TRAs likely enhance their presentation and encounter with passing thymocytes, while maintaining mTEC identity.
Single‐cell RNA sequencing reveals transcriptional heterogeneity based on both ordered and stochastic elements that enables a dedicated cell population to mirror the body's full self‐antigen complement for development of central T‐cell tolerance.
Databáze: OpenAIRE