Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Australia; School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
James Lefevre
Division of Genomics of Development and Disease, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Joo-Seop Park
Division of Pediatric Urology and Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, United States
Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Australia; School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Melissa H Little
Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Australia; Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Progenitor self-renewal and differentiation is often regulated by spatially restricted cues within a tissue microenvironment. Here, we examine how progenitor cell migration impacts regionally induced commitment within the nephrogenic niche in mice. We identify a subset of cells that express Wnt4, an early marker of nephron commitment, but migrate back into the progenitor population where they accumulate over time. Single cell RNA-seq and computational modelling of returning cells reveals that nephron progenitors can traverse the transcriptional hierarchy between self-renewal and commitment in either direction. This plasticity may enable robust regulation of nephrogenesis as niches remodel and grow during organogenesis.
