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  • Single-cell sequencing reveals the potential oncogenic expression atlas of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes.

Single-cell sequencing reveals the potential oncogenic expression atlas of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes.

Biology open (2021-02-17)
Minglin Ou, Min Zhao, Chunhong Li, Donge Tang, Yong Xu, Weier Dai, Weiguo Sui, Yue Zhang, Zhen Xiang, Chune Mo, Hua Lin, Yong Dai
ABSTRACT

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are important source for regenerative medicine. However, the links between pluripotency and oncogenic transformation raise safety issues. To understand the characteristics of iPSC-derived cells at single-cell resolution, we directly reprogrammed two human iPSC lines into cardiomyocytes and collected cells from four time points during cardiac differentiation for single-cell sequencing. We captured 32,365 cells and identified five molecularly distinct clusters that aligned well with our reconstructed differentiation trajectory. We discovered a set of dynamic expression events related to the upregulation of oncogenes and the decreasing expression of tumor suppressor genes during cardiac differentiation, which were similar to the gain-of-function and loss-of-function patterns during oncogenesis. In practice, we characterized the dynamic expression of the TP53 and Yamanaka factor genes (OCT4, SOX2, KLF4 and MYC), which were widely used for human iPSCs lines generation; and revealed the co-occurrence of MYC overexpression and TP53 silencing in some of human iPSC-derived TNNT2+ cardiomyocytes. In summary, our oncogenic expression atlas is valuable for human iPSCs application and the single-cell resolution highlights the clues potentially associated with the carcinogenic risk of human iPSC-derived cells.

MATERIALS
Product Number
Brand
Product Description

Sigma-Aldrich
Triton X-100, laboratory grade
Sigma-Aldrich
Anti-GATA4 Antibody, Chemicon®, from rabbit
Sigma-Aldrich
Monoclonal Anti-α-Actinin (Sarcomeric) antibody produced in mouse, clone EA-53, ascites fluid