HEИндивидуална стипендия2022–2024

sc4DMap · Spatiotemporal analysis of mammalian embryonic development at single-cell level

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2022-09-01 → 2024-06-30
Финансиране от ЕС: 217 019 €
Участници: 1
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Ранното развитие на бозайниците се анализира чрез свързване на движението на клетките с активирането на техните гени. Това помага да се разберат механизмите, които определят как се формират органите и каква функция ще изпълнява всяка клетка.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Spatiotemporal analysis of mammalian embryonic development at single-cell level

Early mammalian embryonic development relies on precise, spatiotemporal regulation of gene expression at the single-cell level. Despite significant progress in developmental biology, it remains a fundamental challenge to understand how individual cell behaviors govern complex processes like gastrulation and organogenesis in these early stages. A key knowledge gap persists in linking the dynamic movements of cells with their gene expression states throughout development. Recent advances in two complementary technologies—spatial transcriptomics at the single-cell level and in toto imaging—provide powerful tools to explore this gap. Spatial transcriptomics enables the examination of gene expression in specific locations within tissues, while in toto imaging captures the dynamic behavior of cells as they transition from single-cell stages to fully formed organisms. However, these techniques have not yet been combined at scale in more complex mammalian systems, a limitation that has hindered a more comprehensive understanding of early developmental processes. This project aims to address this challenge by integrating spatial transcriptomics with in toto imaging to investigate early mammalian development. For the first time, real-time tracking of cellular dynamics will be linked with spatiotemporal gene expression profiles across the developing embryo, offering unprecedented insights into how cells move, interact, and regulate their own gene expression. This integrative approach will allow us to map cellular behaviors and their associated gene expression patterns, ultimately revealing the mechanisms that determine cell fate. The core objective is to develop a novel framework for the integration of these two technologies, resulting in the first cellular-resolution, four-dimensional gene expression map of mammalian embryo development. This map will reflect both cellular dynamics and gene expression at the single-cell level, providing a foundational resource for future studies. In the longer term, this work will set the stage for the broader integration of multi-omics approaches, which have been increasingly explored in single-cell studies but remain underdeveloped in dynamic, multi-cellular contexts. By advancing our understanding of early embryonic development, this project will provide valuable insights into fundamental biological processes and offer new perspectives on how cell fate is determined in mammalian systems.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Mammalian early embryonic development requires exquisite spatiotemporal gene regulation at the level of individual cells. However, it is still unclear and remains a fundamental challenge how cell behaviours govern gastrulation and organogenesis in early embryos. Two techniques have recently been developed to investigate cell fate decisions in early mammalian development (spatial transcriptomics at single-cell level) or to study the dynamic transition from single cells to fully formed organisms (in toto imaging), and if only these two techniques could be combined would we be able to link cell motion with cell state and more completely understand developmental processes. There is precedence for combining live cell imaging with gene expression data in ascidians and annelids, but this has yet to be done, at scale, in more complex mammalian systems. To this end, the proposal aims to investigate early mammalian development by linking spatial transcriptomics and in toto imaging data. This will be the first combination of real-time tracking of cellular dynamics and spatiotemporal gene expression profiles across the developing embryo, thus providing insight into how cells move, interact with each other and how they regulate their own gene expression, ultimately revealing the fate that cells adopt. Accordingly, I will develop a novel integration framework and generate the first cellular-resolution mammalian embryo developmental gene expression map in four dimensions that reflects both cellular dynamics and spatiotemporal gene expression profiles at the single-cell level. Moreover, this work will pave the way for multi-omics integration, which has been increasingly explored but to date is confined to the single-cell space.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

EUROPEAN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY LABORATORY · HeidelbergКоординаторГермания