The human developing heart holds a greater proportion of stem-cell-like cells than the adult heart. However, it is not completely understood how these stem cells differentiate into various cardiac cell types. We have performed an organ-wide transcriptional landscape analysis of the developing heart to advance our understanding of cardiac morphogenesis in humans. Comprehensive spatial gene expression analyses identified distinct profiles that correspond not only to individual chamber compartments, but also distinctive regions within the outflow tract. Furthermore, the generated spatial expression reference maps facilitated the assignment of 3,787 human embryonic cardiac cells obtained from single-cell RNA-sequencing to an in situ location. Through this approach we reveal that the outflow tract contains a wider range of cell types than the chambers, and that the epicardium expression profile can be traced to several cell types that are activated at different stages of development. We also provide a 3D spatial model of human embryonic cardiac cells to enable further studies of the developing human heart.
Asp, Michaela and Giacomello, Stefania and Fürth, Daniel and Reimegård, Johan and Wärdell, Eva and Custodio, Joaquin and Salmén, Fredrik and Sundström, Erik and Åkesson, Elisabet and Bienko, Magda and Månsson‐Broberg, Agneta and Ståhl, Patrik L. and Sylvén, Christer and Lundeberg, Joakim, An Organ-Wide Gene Expression Atlas of the Developing Human Heart (2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3219263 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3219263
This version of the paper has not been formally peer reviewed.
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