Single-cell RNA-Seq Profiling of Human Preimplantation Embryos and Embryonic Stem Cells

Overview

Journal Nat Struct Mol Biol

Specialties Cell Biology
Molecular Biology

Date 2013 Aug 13

PMID 23934149

Citations 788

Authors

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

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

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.

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