Department of Life Sciences, College of Natural Science, Hanyang University, Seoul, 04736, Republic of Korea.
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
Nat Commun. 2020 Sep 8;11(1):4483. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18135-y.
The Drosophila lymph gland, the larval hematopoietic organ comprised of prohemocytes and mature hemocytes, has been a valuable model for understanding mechanisms underlying hematopoiesis and immunity. Three types of mature hemocytes have been characterized in the lymph gland: plasmatocytes, lamellocytes, and crystal cells, which are analogous to vertebrate myeloid cells, yet molecular underpinnings of the lymph gland hemocytes have been less investigated. Here, we use single-cell RNA sequencing to comprehensively analyze heterogeneity of developing hemocytes in the lymph gland, and discover previously undescribed hemocyte types including adipohemocytes, stem-like prohemocytes, and intermediate prohemocytes. Additionally, we identify the developmental trajectory of hemocytes during normal development as well as the emergence of the lamellocyte lineage following active cellular immunity caused by wasp infestation. Finally, we establish similarities and differences between embryonically derived- and larval lymph gland hemocytes. Altogether, our study provides detailed insights into the hemocyte development and cellular immune responses at single-cell resolution.
果蝇的淋巴器官是由原血细胞和成熟血细胞组成的幼虫造血器官，一直是理解造血和免疫机制的有价值的模型。在淋巴器官中已经鉴定出三种成熟的血细胞：浆细胞、膜细胞和晶体细胞，它们类似于脊椎动物的髓样细胞，但淋巴器官血细胞的分子基础研究较少。在这里，我们使用单细胞 RNA 测序全面分析了淋巴器官中发育中的血细胞的异质性，并发现了以前未描述的血细胞类型，包括脂肪血细胞、干细胞样原血细胞和中间原血细胞。此外，我们还确定了正常发育过程中血细胞的发育轨迹，以及在黄蜂侵袭引起的细胞免疫激活后膜细胞谱系的出现。最后，我们确定了胚胎衍生的和幼虫淋巴器官血细胞之间的相似性和差异。总的来说，我们的研究提供了在单细胞分辨率下对血细胞发育和细胞免疫反应的详细了解。
