SFEBES2022 Oral Communications Thyroid (6 abstracts)
Single cell analysis for the human developing thyroid uncovers thyrocytes heterogeneity
Hassan Massalha 1,2 , Mi Trinh 1 , Cecilia Icoresi-Mazzeo 1 , Luz Garcia-Alonso 1 , Nadia Schoenmakers 3 , Sam Behjati 1 & Roser Vento-Tormo 1
1Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom; 2Theory of Condensed Matter Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom; 3University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories, Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Normal functioning of the thyroid is of profound importance for lifetime health due to its role in hormone production. Dysfunction of the thyroid is associated with severe congenital pathologies, some of them appearing in childhood. For example, over half the babies born with congenital hypothyroidism appear completely normal and have no symptoms. However, early diagnosis of thyroid defects is lacking mainly due to a poor understanding of the development of the tissue in utero. Here we have established a comprehensive spatiotemporal atlas of the developing human thyroid during the first and second trimester of pregnancy. Our dense profiling of more than 100k cells using single-cell sequencing has revealed the main cell types, their developmental relationships and transcription factors leading to the formation of the thyroid gland. Notably, we found that thyrocytes are heterogeneous epithelial populations and split thyroid-hormones production between different subsets. We further validated the spatial heterogeneity of thyrocyte subpopulations using multiple spatial transcriptomics methods. Our results confirm the division of labour of the thyrocytes, highlighting functional specialisation amongst them. Altogether our analysis exemplifies the division of labour principle observed in other adult tissues also applies to the development of the thyroids, expanding our knowledge of thyroid-hormones synthesis and regulation. Future work includes how the function principles are altered in pathological conditions.
Volume 86
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Endocrine Abstracts
ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)
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