Concordant and Heterogeneity of Single-Cell Transcriptome in Cardiac Development of Human and Mouse

Abstract

Normal heart development is vital for maintaining its function, and the development process is involved in complex interactions between different cell lineages. How mammalian hearts develop differently is still not fully understood. In this study, we identified several major types of cardiac cells, including cardiomyocytes (CMs), fibroblasts (FBs), endothelial cells (ECs), ECs/FBs, epicardial cells (EPs), and immune cells (macrophage/monocyte cluster, MACs/MONOs), based on single-cell transcriptome data from embryonic hearts of both human and mouse. Then, species-shared and species-specific marker genes were determined in the same cell type between the two species, and the genes with consistent and different expression patterns were also selected by constructing the developmental trajectories. Through a comparison of the development stage similarity of CMs, FBs, and ECs/FBs between humans and mice, it is revealed that CMs at e9.5 and e10.5 of mice are most similar to those of humans at 7 W and 9 W, respectively. Mouse FBs at e10.5, e13.5, and e14.5 are correspondingly more like the same human cells at 6, 7, and 9 W. Moreover, the e9.5-ECs/FBs of mice are most similar to that of humans at 10W. These results provide a resource for understudying cardiac cell types and the crucial markers able to trace developmental trajectories among the species, which is beneficial for finding suitable mouse models to detect human cardiac physiology and related diseases.