Immune Transcriptome Study of Human Nucleated Erythroid Cells from Different Tissues by Single-Cell RNA-Sequencing

Abstract

Nucleated erythroid cells (NECs) are the precursors of erythrocytes. They can be found in various hematopoietic tissues or in the blood. Recently, they have been shown to be active players in immunosuppression through the synthesis of arginase-2 and reactive oxygen species. In this work, we studied NECs in adult bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, and foetal liver parenchyma using single-cell RNA sequencing and found that: (1) all studied NECs expressed the same set of genes, which was enriched in “GO biological process” immunity-related terms; (2) early and late NECs had differential expression of the genes associated with immunosuppression, cell cycle progression, apoptosis, and glycolysis; (3) NECs from different tissues of origin had differential expression of the genes associated with immunosuppression.

Keywords

• nucleated erythroid cells
• red blood cells
• bone marrow
• foetal liver
• umbilical cord blood
• single-cell RNA sequencing