Single cell RNA-seq of pluripotent neoblasts and its early progenies
We isolated X1 neoblasts cells enriched in high piwi-1 expression (Neoblast Population), and profiled ∼7,614 individual cells via scRNA-seq. Unsupervised analyses uncovered 12 distinct classes from 7,088 high-quality cells. We designated these classes Nb1 to Nb12 and ordered them based on high (Nb1) to low (Nb12) piwi-1 expression levels. We further defined groups of genes that best classified the cells parsed into 12 distinct cell clusters to generate a scaled expression heat map of discriminative gene sets for each cluster. Expression of each cluster’s gene signatures was validated using multiplex fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) co-stained with piwi-1 and largely confirmed the cell clusters revealed by scRNA-seq.
We also tested sub-lethal irradiation exposure. To profile rare pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) and avoid interference from immediate progenitor cells, we determined a time point after sub-lethal irradiation (7 DPI) with minimal piwi-1+ cells, followed by isolation and single-cell RNA-seq of 1,200 individual cells derived from X1 (Piwi-1 high) and X2 (Piwi-1 low) cell populations (Sub-lethal Irradiated Surviving X1 and X2 Cell Population)
Embryonic Stages: Y: yolk. S2-S8: Stages 2-8. C4: asexual adult. SX: virgin, sexually mature adult.
For further information about sample preparation and analysis for the single animal RNA-Seq experiment, please refer to the Materials and Methods