College of Life Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Haixia Applied Plant Systems Biology, College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, 350002, Fuzhou, China.
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangxi Key Lab of Sugarcane Biology, College of Agriculture, Guangxi University, 530004, Nanning, China.
Commun Biol. 2021 Oct 1;4(1):1149. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02676-z.
Female germline cells in flowering plants differentiate from somatic cells to produce specialized reproductive organs, called ovules, embedded deep inside the flowers. We investigated the molecular basis of this distinctive developmental program by performing single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) of 16,872 single cells of Arabidopsis thaliana ovule primordia at three developmental time points during female germline differentiation. This allowed us to identify the characteristic expression patterns of the main cell types, including the female germline and its surrounding nucellus. We then reconstructed the continuous trajectory of female germline differentiation and observed dynamic waves of gene expression along the developmental trajectory. A focused analysis revealed transcriptional cascades and identified key transcriptional factors that showed distinct expression patterns along the germline differentiation trajectory. Our study provides a valuable reference dataset of the transcriptional process during female germline differentiation at single-cell resolution, shedding light on the mechanisms underlying germline cell fate determination.
在开花植物中，雌性生殖细胞从体细胞分化而来，产生专门的生殖器官，称为胚珠，嵌入花朵内部深处。我们通过对拟南芥胚珠原基的 16872 个单细胞进行单细胞 RNA 测序(scRNA-seq)，在雌性生殖细胞分化的三个发育时间点，研究了这个独特发育程序的分子基础。这使我们能够识别主要细胞类型的特征表达模式，包括雌性生殖细胞及其周围的珠心。然后，我们重建了雌性生殖细胞分化的连续轨迹，并观察到沿着发育轨迹的基因表达的动态波。重点分析揭示了转录级联，并确定了沿着生殖细胞分化轨迹表现出不同表达模式的关键转录因子。我们的研究提供了在单细胞分辨率下雌性生殖细胞分化过程中转录的有价值的参考数据集，揭示了生殖细胞命运决定的机制。
