dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 44, number 29
October 18, 2018
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Abstracts
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Cell-type specific RNA-Seq reveals novel roles and regulatory programs
for terminally differentiated Dictyostelium cells.
Koryu Kin1, Gillian Forbes1, Andrew Cassidy2 and Pauline Schaap1*
1 School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD15EH,
Angus, UK.
2 Tayside Centre for Genomic Analysis, University of Dundee, Dundee,
DD19SY, Angus, UK
BMC Genomics, in press
Background
A major hallmark of multicellular evolution is increasing complexity by
the evolution of new specialized cell types. During Dictyostelid evolution
novel specialization occurred within taxon group 4. We here aim to
retrace the nature and ancestry of the novel “cup” cells by comparing
their transcriptome to that of other cell types.
Results
RNA-Seq was performed on purified mature spore, stalk and cup cells
and on vegetative amoebas. Clustering and phylogenetic analyses
showed that cup cells were most similar to stalk cells, suggesting that
they share a common ancestor. The affinity between cup and stalk cells
was also evident from promoter-reporter studies of newly identified cell-
type genes, which revealed late expression in cups of many stalk genes.
However, GO enrichment analysis reveal the unexpected prominence of
GTPase mediated signalling in cup cells, in contrast to enrichment of
autophagy and cell wall synthesis related transcripts in stalk cells.
Combining the cell type RNA-Seq data with developmental expression
profiles revealed complex expression dynamics in each cell type as well
as genes exclusively expressed during terminal differentiation. Most
notable were nine related hssA-like genes that were highly and
exclusively expressed in cup cells.
Conclusions
This study reveals the unique transcriptomes of the mature cup, stalk and
spore cells of D. discoideum and provides insight into the ancestry of cup
cells and roles in signalling that were not previously realized. The data
presented in this study will serve as an important resource for future
studies into the regulation and evolution of cell type specialization.
plasticity of protrusions.
submitted by: Pauline Schaap [[log in to unmask]]
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