BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, Guangdong, China.
BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, Guangdong, China; College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Dev Cell. 2022 May 23;57(10):1299-1310.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2022.04.011. Epub 2022 May 4.
Understanding the complex functions of plant leaves requires a thorough characterization of discrete cell features. Although single-cell gene expression profiling technologies have been developed, their application in characterizing cell subtypes has not been achieved yet. Here, we present scStereo-seq (single-cell spatial enhanced resolution omics sequencing) that enabled us to show the bona fide single-cell spatial transcriptome profiles of Arabidopsis leaves. Subtle but significant transcriptomic differences between upper and lower epidermal cells have been successfully distinguished. Furthermore, we discovered cell-type-specific gene expression gradients from the main vein to the leaf edge, which led to the finding of distinct spatial developmental trajectories of vascular cells and guard cells. Our study showcases the importance of physical locations of individual cells for exerting complex biological functions in plants and demonstrates that scStereo-seq is a powerful tool to integrate single-cell location and transcriptome information for plant biology study.
理解植物叶片的复杂功能需要对离散细胞特征进行彻底的描述。尽管已经开发出单细胞基因表达谱分析技术，但尚未应用于鉴定细胞亚型。在这里，我们提出了 scStereo-seq（单细胞空间增强分辨率组学测序），使我们能够展示拟南芥叶片真实的单细胞空间转录组图谱。成功区分了上表皮细胞和下表皮细胞之间细微但显著的转录组差异。此外，我们发现了从主叶脉到叶缘的细胞类型特异性基因表达梯度，这导致发现了不同的维管束细胞和保卫细胞的独特空间发育轨迹。我们的研究展示了个体细胞的物理位置对植物发挥复杂生物学功能的重要性，并表明 scStereo-seq 是整合单细胞位置和转录组信息进行植物生物学研究的有力工具。
