Early dynamic fate changes in haemogenic endothelium characterized at the single-cell level

Gemma Swiers1, Claudia Baumann1, John O'Rourke1

  • 1MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK.

Nature Communications
|December 12, 2013
PubMed

Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are the founding cells of the adult haematopoietic system, born during ontogeny from a specialized subset of endothelium, the haemogenic endothelium (HE) via an endothelial-to-haematopoietic transition (EHT). Although recently imaged in real time, the underlying mechanism of EHT is still poorly understood. We have generated a Runx1 +23 enhancer-reporter transgenic mouse (23GFP) for the prospective isolation of HE throughout embryonic development. Here we perform functional analysis of over 1,800 and transcriptional analysis of 268 single 23GFP(+) HE cells to explore the onset of EHT at the single-cell level. We show that initiation of the haematopoietic programme occurs in cells still embedded in the endothelial layer, and is accompanied by a previously unrecognized early loss of endothelial potential before HSCs emerge. Our data therefore provide important insights on the timeline of early haematopoietic commitment.

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