| Description |
Skeletal muscle is composed of a large and heterogeneous assortment of cell populations interacting with each other to maintain muscle homeostasis, but little is known about the mechanism that controls myogenic development in response to artificial selection. Pigs (Sus scrofa) across breeds exhibit distinct muscle phenotypes resulting from the domestication and selective breeding. Using unbiased single-cell transcriptomic analysis (scRNA-seq), the impact of artificial selection on cell profiles is investigated in neonatal skeletal muscle of pigs. The work provides panoramic muscle-resident cell profiles, identifies novel and/or breed-specific cells, and maps them on pseudotime trajectories. Artificial selection elicits significant changes in muscle-resident cell profiles, while it conserves signs of pigs experiencing environmental challenges. The result suggests that fibro-adipogenic progenitors (FAPs) serve as a cellular interaction-hub, and their specific transcriptional factors identified may serve as candidate target regulons in pursuing a specific muscle phenotype. Moreover, an across-species comparison among humans, mice and pigs shows conservation and divergence of mammalian muscle ontology. The findings reveal the cellular heterogeneity shift and novel cell subpopulations with their interactions and should greatly facilitate the understanding of the mechanism underlying divergent muscle phenotypes resulted from artificial selection. |
