Single-cell RNA-Seq profiling of human preimplantation embryos and embryonic stem cells.
Liying Yan, Mingyu Yang, Hongshan Guo, Lu Yang, Jun Wu, Rong Li, Ping Liu, Ying Lian, Xiaoying Zheng, Jie Yan, Jin Huang, Ming Li, Xinglong Wu, Lu Wen, Kaiqin Lao, Ruiqiang Li, Jie Qiao, Fuchou Tang
Author Information
Liying Yan: 1] Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center and Center for Reproductive Medicine, College of Life Sciences, Third Hospital, Peking University, Beijing, China. [2] Key Laboratory of Assisted Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Beijing, China. [3].
Measuring gene expression in individual cells is crucial for understanding the gene regulatory network controlling human embryonic development. Here we apply single-cell RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis to 124 individual cells from human preimplantation embryos and human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) at different passages. The number of maternally expressed genes detected in our data set is 22,687, including 8,701 long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which represents a significant increase from 9,735 maternal genes detected previously by cDNA microarray. We discovered 2,733 novel lncRNAs, many of which are expressed in specific developmental stages. To address the long-standing question whether gene expression signatures of human epiblast (EPI) and in vitro hESCs are the same, we found that EPI cells and primary hESC outgrowth have dramatically different transcriptomes, with 1,498 genes showing differential expression between them. This work provides a comprehensive framework of the transcriptome landscapes of human early embryos and hESCs.
