posted on 2021-08-11, 08:30authored byTeresa Rayon, Rory J Maizels, Christopher Barrington, James Briscoe
The spinal cord receives input from peripheral sensory neurons and controls motor output by regulating muscle innervating motor neurons. These functions are carried out by neural circuits comprising molecularly distinct neuronal subtypes generated in a characteristic spatiotemporal arrangement from progenitors in the embryonic neural tube. To gain insight into the diversity and complexity of cells in the developing human neural tube, we used single-cell mRNA sequencing to profile cervical and thoracic regions in four human embryos of Carnegie stages (CS) CS12, CS14, CS17 and CS19 from gestational weeks 4-7. Analysis of progenitor and neuronal populations from the neural tube and dorsal root ganglia identified dozens of distinct cell types and facilitated the reconstruction of the differentiation pathways of specific neuronal subtypes. Comparison with mouse revealed overall similarity of mammalian neural tube development while highlighting some human-specific features. These data provide a catalogue of gene expression and cell type identity in the human neural tube that will support future studies of sensory and motor control systems. The data can be explored at https://shiny.crick.ac.uk/scviewer/neuraltube/.
Funding
Crick (Grant ID: 10002, Grant title: STP Bioinformatics & Biostatistics)
Crick (Grant ID: 10051, Grant title: Briscoe FC001051)
Wellcome Trust (Grant ID: 215116/Z/18/Z, Grant title: WT 215116/Z/18/Z)
European Molecular Biology Organization (Grant ID: ALTF 328-2015, Grant title: EMBO ALTF 328-2015)