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Deciphering cell states and genealogies of human haematopoiesis
Abstract
The human blood system is maintained through the differentiation and massive amplification of a limited number of long-lived haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) 1 . Perturbations to this process underlie diverse diseases, but the clonal contributions to human haematopoiesis and how this changes with age remain incompletely understood. Although recent insights have emerged from barcoding studies in model systems 2–5 , simultaneous detection of cell states and phylogenies from natural barcodes in humans remains challenging. Here we introduce an improved, single-cell lineage-tracing system based on deep detection of naturally occurring mitochondrial DNA mutations with simultaneous readout of transcriptional states and chromatin accessibility. We use this system to define the clonal architecture of HSCs and map the physiological state and output of clones. We uncover functional heterogeneity in HSC clones, which is stable over months and manifests as both differences in total HSC output and biases towards the production of different mature cell types. We also find that the diversity of HSC clones decreases markedly with age, leading to an oligoclonal structure with multiple distinct clonal expansions. Our study thus provides a clonally resolved and cell-state-aware atlas of human haematopoiesis at single-cell resolution, showing an unappreciated functional diversity of human HSC clones and, more broadly, paving the way for refined studies of clonal dynamics across a range of tissues in human health and disease.
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“Conversely, spontaneous mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations can be captured together with cell-state information by scRNA-seq or ATAC–seq4,13,14.”
From Clonal tracing with somatic epimutations reveals dynamics of blood ageing (2025) · cites this paper as [14]
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Fundamental properties of unperturbed haematopoiesis from stem cells in vivo
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Lineage tracing on transcriptional landscapes links state to fate during differentiation
Weinreb, C., Rodriguez-Fraticelli, A., Camargo, F. D., & Klein, A. M. (2020) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aaw3381 · Cited by 759 · cited 1×
“Interestingly, the functions of these nearby genes are reminiscent of the respective output and lineage biases examined, which suggests that chromatin accessibility variation might foreshadow fate decisions in HSCs, echoing previous reports 12,52 .”
Population dynamics of normal human blood inferred from somatic mutations
Lee-Six, H., Øbro, N. F., Shepherd, M. S., Grossmann, S., Dawson, K., Belmonte, M., Osborne, R. J., Huntly, B. J. P., Martincorena, I., Anderson, E., et al. (2018) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0497-0 · Cited by 604
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Polylox barcoding reveals haematopoietic stem cell fates realized in vivo
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Hematopoietic Stem Cells Are the Major Source of Multilineage Hematopoiesis in Adult Animals
Sawai, C. M., Babovic, S., Upadhaya, S., Knapp, D. J. H. F., Lavin, Y., Lau, C. M., Goloborodko, A., Feng, J., Fujisaki, J., Ding, L., et al. (2016) · Immunity · doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2016.08.007 · Cited by 381 · cited 1×
“The extent to which HSC output variation and lineage biases exist is controversial, and most previous studies have relied on labelling in mouse models and/or transplantation assays 3–5 , 17– 19 .”
Nerlov, C., Querfurth, E., Kulessa, H., & Graf, T. (2000) · Blood · doi:10.1182/blood.v95.8.2543 · Cited by 366 · cited 1×
“We found that the GATA1 motif begins to be activated earlier during HSC differentiation, even at low GATA1 expression, compared with SPI1, which is consistent with previous studies 39,40 .”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Weng, C., Yu, F., Yang, D., Poeschla, M., Liggett, L. A., Jones, M. G., Qiu, X., Wahlster, L., Caulier, A., Hussmann, J. A., Schnell, A., Yost, K. E., Koblan, L. W., Martin-Rufino, J. D., Min, J., Hammond, A., Ssozi, D., Bueno, R., Mallidi, H., Kreso, A., Escabi, J., Rideout, W. M., Jacks, T., Hormoz, S., van Galen, P., Weissman, J. S., & Sankaran, V. G.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2024-01-22
- Volume
- 627
- Issue
- 8003
- Pages
- 389-398
- ISSN
- 0028-0836
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC10937407
- Cited by
- 171
- References
- 14
- Language
- en
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