Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.
Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin 300308, China.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Jan 3;120(1):e2201518120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2201518120. Epub 2022 Dec 28.
Decline in mitochondrial function underlies aging and age-related diseases, but the role of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations in these processes remains elusive. To investigate patterns of mtDNA mutations, it is particularly important to quantify mtDNA mutations and their associated pathogenic effects at the single-cell level. However, existing single-cell mtDNA sequencing approaches remain inefficient due to high cost and low mtDNA on-target rates. In this study, we developed a cost-effective mtDNA targeted-sequencing protocol called single-cell sequencing by targeted amplification of multiplex probes (scSTAMP) and experimentally validated its reliability. We then applied our method to assess single-cell mtDNA mutations in 768 B lymphocytes and 768 monocytes from a 76-y-old female. Across 632 B lymphocyte and 617 monocytes with medium mtDNA coverage over >100×, our results indicated that over 50% of cells carried at least one mtDNA mutation with variant allele frequencies (VAFs) over 20%, and that cells carried an average of 0.658 and 0.712 such mutation for B lymphocytes and monocytes, respectively. Surprisingly, more than 20% of the observed mutations had VAFs of over 90% in either cell population. In addition, over 60% of the mutations were in protein-coding genes, of which over 70% were nonsynonymous, and more than 50% of the nonsynonymous mutations were predicted to be highly pathogenic. Interestingly, about 80% of the observed mutations were singletons in the respective cell populations. Our results revealed mtDNA mutations with functional significance might be prevalent at advanced age, calling further investigation on age-related mtDNA mutation dynamics at the single-cell level.
线粒体功能下降是衰老和衰老相关疾病的基础,但线粒体 DNA(mtDNA)突变在这些过程中的作用仍不清楚。为了研究 mtDNA 突变的模式,特别重要的是在单细胞水平上定量 mtDNA 突变及其相关的致病效应。然而,由于成本高和 mtDNA 靶向率低,现有的单细胞 mtDNA 测序方法仍然效率低下。在这项研究中,我们开发了一种经济有效的 mtDNA 靶向测序方法,称为通过多重探针靶向扩增的单细胞测序(scSTAMP),并通过实验验证了其可靠性。然后,我们应用我们的方法来评估来自一名 76 岁女性的 768 个 B 淋巴细胞和 768 个单核细胞中的单细胞 mtDNA 突变。在 632 个 B 淋巴细胞和 617 个 mtDNA 覆盖率超过>100×的单核细胞中,我们的结果表明,超过 50%的细胞携带至少一个 mtDNA 突变,其变异等位基因频率(VAF)超过 20%,并且 B 淋巴细胞和单核细胞的细胞分别携带 0.658 和 0.712 个这样的突变。令人惊讶的是,超过 20%的观察到的突变在两种细胞群中的 VAF 超过 90%。此外,超过 60%的突变发生在蛋白质编码基因中,其中超过 70%是非同义突变,超过 50%的非同义突变被预测为高度致病性。有趣的是,大约 80%的观察到的突变在各自的细胞群中是单态的。我们的结果表明,功能意义上的 mtDNA 突变可能在高龄时普遍存在,这就需要进一步在单细胞水平上研究与年龄相关的 mtDNA 突变动态。
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