A lineage-resolved molecular atlas of C. elegans embryogenesis at single-cell resolution.

1. Science. 2019 Sep 20;365(6459):eaax1971. doi: 10.1126/science.aax1971. Epub 2019 Sep 5.

A lineage-resolved molecular atlas of C. elegans embryogenesis at single-cell resolution.

Packer JS(1), Zhu Q(2), Huynh C(1), Sivaramakrishnan P(3), Preston E(3), Dueck H(3), Stefanik D(4), Tan K(3)(5)(6)(7), Trapnell C(1), Kim J(8), Waterston RH(9), Murray JI(10).

Author information: (1)Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. (2)Genomics and Computational Biology Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (3)Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (4)Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (5)Division of Oncology and Center for Childhood Cancer Research, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (6)Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (7)Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (8)Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. junhyong@sas.upenn.edu watersto@uw.edu jmurr@pennmedicine.upenn.edu. (9)Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. junhyong@sas.upenn.edu watersto@uw.edu jmurr@pennmedicine.upenn.edu. (10)Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. junhyong@sas.upenn.edu watersto@uw.edu jmurr@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Comment in Nat Rev Genet. 2019 Nov;20(11):630. doi: 10.1038/s41576-019-0179-2.

Caenorhabditis elegans is an animal with few cells but a wide diversity of cell types. In this study, we characterize the molecular basis for their specification by profiling the transcriptomes of 86,024 single embryonic cells. We identify 502 terminal and preterminal cell types, mapping most single-cell transcriptomes to their exact position in C. elegans’ invariant lineage. Using these annotations, we find that (i) the correlation between a cell’s lineage and its transcriptome increases from middle to late gastrulation, then falls substantially as cells in the nervous system and pharynx adopt their terminal fates; (ii) multilineage priming contributes to the differentiation of sister cells at dozens of lineage branches; and (iii) most distinct lineages that produce the same anatomical cell type converge to a homogenous transcriptomic state.

Copyright © 2019 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.

DOI: 10.1126/science.aax1971 PMCID: PMC7428862 PMID: 31488706 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Conflict of interest statement: Competing interests: The authors have no competing interests.