Biology subjects

Li, G.

Publications and source records attributed to Li, G..

At least 451 records · Page 25Linked to original sources

bioRxiv2020

SnapHiC: a computational pipeline to map chromatin contacts from single cell Hi-C data

Single cell Hi-C (scHi-C) analysis has been increasingly used to map the chromatin architecture in diverse tissue contexts, but computational tools to define chromatin contacts at high resolution from scHi-C data are still lacking. Here, we describe SnapHiC, a method that can identify chromatin loops at high resolution and accuracy from scHi-C data. We benchmark SnapHiC against HiCCUPS, a common tool for mapping chromatin contacts in bulk Hi-C data, using scHi-C data from 742 mouse embryonic stem cells. We further demonstrate its utility by analyzing single-nucleus methyl-3C-seq data from 2,869 human prefrontal cortical cells. We uncover cell-type-specific chromatin loops and predict putative target genes for non-coding sequence variants associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. Our results suggest that SnapHiC could facilitate the analysis of cell-type-specific chromatin architecture and gene regulatory programs in complex tissues.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2020

Environmental conditions and diffusion-limited microbial transfer drive specific microbial communities detected at different sections in oil-production reservoir with water-flooding

This study investigated the distribution of microbial communities in the oilfield production facilities of a water-flooding petroleum reservoir and the roles of environmental variation, microorganisms in injected water, and diffusion-limited microbial transfer in structuring the microbial communities. Similar bacterial communities were observed in surface water-injection facilities dominated by aerobic or facultative anaerobic Betaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, and Flavobacteria. Distinct bacterial communities were observed in downhole of the water-injection wells dominated by Clostridia, Deltaproteobacteria, Anaerolineae, and Synergistia, and in the oil-production wells dominated by Gammaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, and Epsilonproteobacteria. Methanosaeta, Methanobacterium, and Methanolinea were dominant archaeal taxa in the water-injection facilities, while the oil-production wells were predominated by Methanosaeta, Methanomethylovorans, and Methanocalculus. Energy, nucleotide, translation, and glycan biosynthesis metabolisms were more active in the downhole of the water-injection wells, while bacterial chemotaxis, biofilm formation, two-component system, and xenobiotic biodegradation was associated with the oil-production wells. The number of shared OTUs and its positive correlation with formation permeability revealed differential diffusion-limited microbial transfer in oil-production facilities. The overall results indicate that environmental variation and microorganisms in injected water are the determinants that structure microbial communities in water-injection facilities, and the determinants in oil-bearing strata are environmental variation and diffusion-limited microbial transfer. IMPORTANCEWater-flooding continually inoculates petroleum reservoirs with exogenous microorganisms, nutrients, and oxygen. However, how this process influences the subsurface microbial community of the whole production process remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the spatial distribution of microbial communities in the oilfield production facilities of a water-flooding petroleum reservoir, and comprehensively illustrate the roles of environmental variation, microorganisms in injected water, and diffusion-limited microbial transfer in structuring the microbial communities. The results advance fundamental understanding on petroleum reservoir ecosystems that subjected to anthropogenic perturbations during oil production processes.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

Loss of phosphatidylserine flippase β-subunit Tmem30a in podocytes leads to albuminuria and glomerulosclerosis

Phosphatidylserine (PS) is asymmetrically concentrated in the cytoplasmic leaflet of eukaryotic cell plasma membranes. This asymmetry is regulated by a group of P4 ATPases (named PS flippases) and its {beta}-subunit TMEM30A. The disruption of PS flippase leads to severe human diseases. Tmem30a is essential in the mouse retina, cerebellum and liver. However, the role of Tmem30a in the kidney, where it is highly expressed, remains unclear. Podocytes in the glomerulus form a branched interdigitating filtration barrier that can prevent the traversing of large cellular elements and macromolecules from the blood into the urinary space. Damage to podocytes can disrupt the filtration barrier and lead to proteinuria and podocytopathy, including focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, minimal change disease, membranous nephropathy, and diabetic nephropathy. To investigate the role of Tmem30a in the kidney, we generated a podocyte-specific Tmem30a knockout (cKO) mouse model using the NPHS2-Cre line. Tmem30a KO mice displayed albuminuria, podocyte degeneration, mesangial cell proliferation with prominent extracellular matrix accumulation and eventual progression to focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). Reduced TMEM30A expression was observed in patients with minimal change disease and membranous nephropathy, highlighting the clinical importance of TMEM30A in podocytopathy. Our data demonstrate a critical role of Tmem30a in maintaining podocyte survival and glomerular filtration barrier integrity. Understanding the dynamic regulation of the PS distribution in the glomerulus provides a unique perspective to pinpoint the mechanism of podocyte damage and potential therapeutic targets.

pathology↗

bioRxiv2020

Aperture: Accurate detection of structural variations and viral integrations in circulating tumor DNA using an alignment-free algorithm

BackgroundThe identification of structural variations (SV) and viral integrations in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is a key step in precision oncology that may assist clinicians for treatment selection and monitoring. However, it is challenging to accurately detect low frequency SVs or SVs involving complex junctions in ctDNA sequencing data due to the short fragment size of ctDNA. ResultsHere, we describe Aperture, a new fast SV caller that applies a unique strategy of k-mer based searching, breakpoint detection using binary labels and candidates clustering to detect SVs and viral integrations in high sensitivity, especially when junctions span repetitive regions, followed by a barcode-based filter to ensure specificity. We evaluated the performance of Aperture in stimulated, reference and real datasets. Aperture demonstrates superior sensitivity and specificity in all tests, especially for low dilution test, compared with existing methods. In addition, Aperture is able to predict sites of viral integration and identify complex SVs involving novel insertions and repetitive sequences in real patient data. ConclusionsUsing a novel alignment-free algorithm, Aperture achieves sensitive, specific and fast detection of structural variations and viral integrations, which may enhance the diagnostic value of ctDNA in clinical application. The executable file and source code are freely available at https://github.com/liuhc8/Aperture.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2020

Recombinant Fc-fusion vaccine of RBD induced protection against SARS-CoV-2 in non-human primate and mice

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to infect people globally. The increased COVID-19 cases and no licensed vaccines highlight the need to develop safe and effective vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Multiple vaccines candidates are under pre-clinical or clinical trails with different strengths and weaknesses. Here we developed a pilot scale production of a recombinant subunit vaccine (RBD-Fc Vacc) with the Receptor Binding Domain of SARS-CoV-2 S protein fused with the Fc domain of human IgG1. RBD-Fc Vacc induced SARS-CoV-2 specific neutralizing antibodies in non-human primates and human ACE2 transgenic mice. The antibodies induced in macaca fascicularis neutralized three divergent SARS-CoV2 strains, suggesting a broader neutralizing ability. Three times immunizations protected Macaca fascicularis (20ug or 40ug per dose) and mice (10ug or 20ug per dose) from SARS-CoV-2 infection respectively. These data support clinical development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for humans. RBD-Fc Vacc is currently being assessed in randomized controlled phase 1/II human clinical trails. SummaryThis study confirms protective efficacy of a SARS-CoV-2 RBD-Fc subunit vaccine.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2020

Genome-wide screen of genomic imprinting in endosperm and population-level analysis reveal allelic variation for imprinting in flax

Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic phenomenon caused by the biased expression of maternally and paternally inherited alleles. In flowering plants, genomic imprinting predominantly occurs in triploid endosperm and plays a vital role in seed development. In this study, we identified 241 candidate imprinted genes including 143 maternally expressed imprinted genes (MEGs) and 98 paternally expressed imprinted genes (PEGs) in flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) endosperm using deep RNA sequencing. The conservation of imprinting in plants is very limited and imprinting clustering is not a general feature. MEGs tends to be endosperm expression specific, while PEGs are non-tissue specific. Imprinted SNPs differentiated 200 flax cultivars into oil flax, oil-fiber dual purpose flax (OF) and fiber flax subgroups, suggesting that genomic imprinting contributes to intraspecific variation in flax. The nucleotide diversity ({pi}) of imprinted genes in oil flax subgroup is significantly higher than that in fiber flax subgroup, indicating that some imprinted genes undergo positive selection during flax domestication from oil flax to fiber flax. Imprinted genes undergo positive selection is related to the functions. Eleven imprinted genes related to seed size and weight were identified using the candidate gene-based association study. Our study provides information for further exploring the function and genomic variation of imprinted genes in flax population.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Modeling Side-Stream Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal (S2EBPR) System Using Agent-based Model with Adaptive Maintenance, Decay and TCA Metabolism

Side-stream enhanced biological phosphorus removal process (S2EBPR) has been demonstrated to improve performance stability and offer a suite of advantages compared to conventional EBPR design. Design and optimization of S2EBPR require modification of the current EBPR models that were not able to fully reflect the metabolic functions of and competition between the polyphosphate-accumulating organisms (PAOs) and glycogen-accumulating organisms (GAOs) under extended anaerobic conditions as in the S2EBPR conditions. In this study, we proposed and validated an improved model (iEBPR) for simulating PAO and GAO competition that incorporated heterogeneity and versatility in PAO sequential polymer usage, staged maintenance-decay, and glycolysis-TCA pathway shifts. The iEBPR model was first calibrated against bulk batch testing experiment data, being proved to perform better than the previous EBPR model for predicting the soluble orthoP, ammonia, biomass glycogen, and PHA temporal profiles in a batch starvation testing under prolonged anaerobic conditions. We further validated the model with another independent set of batch anaerobic batch testing data that included high-resolution single-cell and specific population level intracellular polymer measurements enabled by the single-cell Raman micro-spectroscopy technique. The model accurately predicted the temporal changes in the intracellular polymers at cellular and population levels within PAOs and GAOs, and further confirmed the proposed mechanism of sequential polymer utilization, and polymer availability-dependent and staged maintenance-decay in PAOs. These results indicate that under extended anaerobic phases as in S2EBPR, the PAOs may gain competitive advantages over GAOs due to the possession of multiple intracellular polymers and the adaptive switching of the anaerobic metabolic pathways that consequently lead to the later and slower decay in PAOs than GAOs. The iEBPR model can be applied to facilitate and optimize the design and operations of S2EBPR for more reliable nutrient removal and recovery from wastewater.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

precisionFDA Truth Challenge V2: Calling variants from short- and long-reads in difficult-to-map regions

The precisionFDA Truth Challenge V2 aimed to assess the state-of-the-art of variant calling in difficult-to-map regions and the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC). Starting with FASTQ files, 20 challenge participants applied their variant calling pipelines and submitted 64 variant callsets for one or more sequencing technologies (~35X Illumina, ~35X PacBio HiFi, and ~50X Oxford Nanopore Technologies). Submissions were evaluated following best practices for benchmarking small variants with the new GIAB benchmark sets and genome stratifications. Challenge submissions included a number of innovative methods for all three technologies, with graph-based and machine-learning methods scoring best for short-read and long-read datasets, respectively. New methods out-performed the 2016 Truth Challenge winners, and new machine-learning approaches combining multiple sequencing technologies performed particularly well. Recent developments in sequencing and variant calling have enabled benchmarking variants in challenging genomic regions, paving the way for the identification of previously unknown clinically relevant variants.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2020

iSMNN: Batch Effect Correction for Single-cell RNA-seq data via Iterative Supervised Mutual Nearest Neighbor Refinement

Batch effect correction is an essential step in the integrative analysis of multiple single cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) data. One state-of-the-art strategy for batch effect correction is via unsupervised or supervised detection of mutual nearest neighbors (MNNs). However, both two kinds of methods only detect MNNs across batches on the top of uncorrected data, where the large batch effect may affect the MNN search. To address this issue, we presented iSMNN, a batch effect correction approach via iterative supervised MNN refinement across data after correction. Our benchmarking on both simulation and real datasets showed the advantages of the iterative refinement of MNNs on the performance of correction. Compared to popular alternative methods, our iSMNN is able to better mix the cells of the same cell type across batches. In addition, iSMNN can also facilitate the identification of differentially expression genes (DEGs) relevant to the biological function of certain cell types. These results indicated that iSMNN will be a valuable method for integrating multiple scRNA-seq datasets that can facilitate biological and medical studies at single-cell level.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2020

Aberrant peripheral immune responses in acute Kawasaki disease with single-cell sequencing

Kawasaki disease (KD) is the most common cause of acquired heart disease in children in developed countries. Although diverse immune aberrance was reported, a global understanding of immune responses underlying acute KD was lacking. Based on single-cell sequencing, we profiled peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with acute KD before and after intravenous immunoglobulin therapy and from healthy controls. Most differentially expressed genes were derived from monocytes, with upregulation of immunoglobulin receptors, complement and receptors and downregulation of MHC class II receptors before therapy. The percentage of B cells was significantly increased before therapy and rapidly returned to normal after therapy. There was also an increased abundance of B-cell receptors with IGHA and IGHG after therapy, accompanied by massive oligoclonal expansion. The percentage of CD8 T cells was remarkably decreased during acute KD, especially the subset of effector memory CD8 T cells. All lymphocyte compartments were characterized by underexpressed interferon response pathways before therapy. The identification of unique innate and adaptive immune responses suggests potential mechanisms underlying pathogenesis and progression of KD.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2020

Extensive MET alterations confer clinical response to MET inhibitors in gliomas

Activating alterations of the MET gene are well-characterized oncogenic drivers, and MET inhibitors could successfully treat several tumor types with MET alterations, including gliomas with PTPRZ1-MET fusion. However, the full diversity and prevalence of MET alterations in gliomas are still lacking to accurately identify a subset of patients likely to benefit from MET inhibitor treatment. Here, we interrogated genomic profiles of 1,351 gliomas, and further identify 60 cases harboring MET alterations, including MET fusions and various MET exon skipping events. MET RNA alterations, but not MET amplification, are highly enriched in the secondary glioblastomas (sGBM) with significantly worse prognosis. Further molecular analysis has shown that MET RNA alterations acting an additive effects of MET overexpression are induced in the course of glioma evolution. In vitro and clinical studies indicate cells and patients harboring MET alterations have better response to MET inhibitors. Collectively, these data suggest that a subgroup of gliomas harboring MET alterations likely to have benefit from MET-targeted therapy.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Remdesivir Metabolite GS-441524 Efficiently Inhibits SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Mouse Model

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rapidly spreads across worldwide and becomes a global pandemic. Remdesivir is the only COVID-19 treatment approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA); however, its effectiveness is still under questioning as raised by the results of a large WHO Solidarity Trial. Herein, we report that the parent nucleotide of remdesivir, GS-441524, potently inhibits the replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Vero E6 and other cells. It exhibits good plasma distribution and longer half-life (t1/2=4.8h) in rat PK study. GS-441524 is highly efficacious against SARS-CoV-2 in AAV-hACE2 transduced mice and murine hepatitis virus (MHV) in mice, reducing the viral titers in CoV-attacked organs, without noticeable toxicity. Given that GS-441524 was the predominant metabolite of remdesivir in the plasma, the anti-COVID-19 effect of remdesivir may partly come from the effect of GS-441524. Our results also supported that GS-441524 as a promising and inexpensive drug candidate in the treatment of COVID-19 and future emerging CoVs diseases.

pharmacology and toxicology↗

bioRxiv2020

Information Confusion Reveals an Innate Limit of the Information Processing by Neurons

Information experiences complex transformation processes in the brain, involving various errors. A daunting and critical challenge in neuroscience is to understand the origin of these errors and their effects on neural information processing. While previous efforts have made substantial progresses in studying the information errors in bounded, unreliable and noisy transformation cases, it still remains elusive whether the neural system is inherently error-free under an ideal and noise-free condition. This work brings the controversy to an end with a negative answer. We propose a novel neural information confusion theory, indicating the widespread presence of information confusion phenomenon after the end of transmission process, which originates from innate neuron characteristics rather than external noises. Then, we reformulate the definition of zero-error capacity under the context of neuroscience, presenting an optimal upper bound of the zero-error transformation rates determined by the tuning properties of neurons. By applying this theory to neural coding analysis, we unveil the multi-dimensional impacts of information confusion on neural coding. Although it reduces the variability of neural responses and limits mutual information, it controls the stimulus-irrelevant neural activities and improves the interpretability of neural responses based on stimuli. Together, the present study discovers an inherent and ubiquitous precision limitation of neural information transformation, which shapes the coding process by neural ensembles. These discoveries reveal that the neural system is intrinsically error-prone in information processing even in the most ideal cases. Author summaryOne of the most central challenges in neuroscience is to understand the information processing capacity of the neural system. Decades of efforts have identified various errors in nonideal neural information processing cases, indicating that the neural system is not optimal in information processing because of the widespread presences of external noises and limitations. These incredible progresses, however, can not address the problem about whether the neural system is essentially error-free and optimal under ideal information processing conditions, leading to extensive controversies in neuroscience. Our work brings this well-known controversy to an end with a negative answer. We demonstrate that the neural system is intrinsically error-prone in information processing even in the most ideal cases, challenging the conventional ideas about the superior neural information processing capacity. We further indicate that the neural coding process is shaped by this innate limit, revealing how the characteristics of neural information functions and further cognitive functions are determined by the inherent limitation of the neural system.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

CASB: A concanavalin A-based sample barcoding strategy for single-cell sequencing

Sample multiplexing facilitates single cell sequencing by reducing costs, revealing subtle difference between similar samples, and identifying artifacts such as cell doublets. However, universal and cost-effective strategies are rather limited. Here, we reported a Concanavalin A-based Sample Barcoding strategy (CASB), which could be followed by both single-cell mRNA and ATAC (assay for transposase accessible chromatin) sequencing techniques. The method involves minimal sample processing, thereby preserving intact transcriptomic or epigenomic patterns. We demonstrated its high labeling efficiency, high accuracy in assigning cells/nuclei to samples regardless of cell type and genetic background, as well as high sensitivity in detecting doublets by two applications: 1) CASB followed by scRNA-seq to track the transcriptomic dynamics of a cancer cell line perturbed by multiple drugs, which revealed compound-specific heterogeneous response; 2) CASB together with both snATAC-seq and scRNA-seq to illustrate the IFN-{gamma}-mediated dynamic changes on epigenome and transcriptome profile, which identified the transcription factor underlying heterogeneous IFN-{gamma} response.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2020

Auxin guides germ cell specification in Arabidopsis anthers

Germ cells (GCs) transmit genetic information from one generation to the next. Unlike animal GCs, plant GCs are induced post-embryonically, forming locally from somatic cells. This induction is coordinated with organogenesis and might be guided by positional cues. In angiosperms, male GCs initiate from the internal layers at the four corners of the anther primordia and are gradually enclosed by parietal cell (PC) layers, leading to a concentric GC-PC pattern.1,2 However, the underlying mechanism of GC initiation and GC-PC pattern formation is unclear. Auxin affects pattern formation3 and anther development.4-11 However, whether GC formation involves auxin remains unknown. We report that the auxin distribution in pre-meiotic anthers parallels GC initiation, forming a centripetal gradient between the outer primordial cells and the inner GCs. The auxin biosynthesis genes TRYPTOPHAN AMINOTRANSFERASE OF ARABIDOPSIS 1 (TAA1) and TRYPTOPHAN AMINOTRANSFERASE RELATED 2 (TAR2)5,12 are responsible for this patterning and essential for GC specification. SPOROCYTELESS/NOZZLE (SPL/NZZ, a determinant for GC specification)13-15 mediates the effect of auxin on GC specification, modulates auxin homeostasis, and maintains centripetal auxin patterning. Our results reveal that auxin is a key factor guiding GC specification in Arabidopsis anthers.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Depressive-like behaviors induced by somatostatin-positive GABA neuron silencing are rescued by alpha 5 GABA-A receptor potentiation

IntroductionDeficits in somatostatin-positive gamma-aminobutyric acid interneurons ("SST+ cells") are associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) and a causal link between SST+ cell dysfunction and depressive-like deficits has been proposed, based on rodent studies showing that chronic stress induces a low SST+ GABA cellular phenotype across corticolimbic brain regions, that lowering Sst, SST+ cell, or GABA functions induces depressive-like behaviors, and that disinhibiting SST+ cell functions has antidepressant effects. Recent studies found that compounds preferentially potentiating receptors mediating SST+ cell functions with 5-GABA-A receptor positive allosteric modulators (5-PAMs) achieved antidepressant-like effects. Together, evidence suggests that SST+ cells regulate mood and cognitive functions that are disrupted in MDD and that rescuing SST+ cell function may represent a promising therapeutic strategy. MethodsWe developed a mouse model with chemogenetic silencing of brain-wide SST+ cells and employed behavioral characterization 30 min after acute or sub-chronic silencing to identify contributions to behaviors related to MDD. We then assessed whether an 5-PAM, GL-II-73, could rescue behavioral deficits induced by SST+ cell silencing. ResultsBrain-wide SST+ cell silencing induced features of stress-related illnesses, including elevated neuronal activity and plasma corticosterone levels, increased anxiety- and anhedonia-like behaviors, and impaired short-term memory. GL-II-73 led to antidepressant-like improvements among all behavioral deficits induced by brain-wide SST+ cell silencing. ConclusionOur data validate SST+ cells as regulators of mood and cognitive functions, support a role for SST+ cell deficits in depressive-like behaviors, and demonstrate that bypassing low SST+ cell function via 5-PAM represents a targeted antidepressant strategy. Significance StatementHuman and animal studies demonstrate somatostatin-positive GABAergic interneuron ("SST+ cell") deficits as contributing factors to the pathology of major depressive disorder (MDD). These changes involve reduced SST and GABAergic markers, occurring across corticolimbic brain regions. Studies have identified roles for SST+ cells in regulating mood and cognitive functions, but employed genetic or region-specific ablation that is not representative of disease-related processes. Here, we developed a chemogenetic mouse model of brain-wide low SST+ cell function. This model confirmed a role for SST+ cells in regulating anxiety- and anhedonia-like behaviors, overall behavioral emotionality, and impaired working memory. We next showed that a positive allosteric modulator at 5-GABA-A receptors (5-PAM, GL-II-73) rescued behavioral deficits induced by low SST+ cell function. These findings support a central role for brain-wide low SST+ cell function in MDD and validate targeting 5-GABA-A receptors as a therapeutic modality across MDD symptom dimensions.

pharmacology and toxicology↗

bioRxiv2020

CIGAR-seq, a CRISPR/Cas-based method for unbiased screening of novel mRNA modification regulators

Cellular RNA is decorated with over 170 types of chemical modifications. Many modifications in mRNA, including m6A and m5C, have been associated with critical cellular functions under physiological and/or pathological conditions. To understand the biological functions of these modifications, it is vital to identify the regulators that modulate the modification rate. However, a high-throughput method for unbiased screening of these regulators is so far lacking. Here, we report such a method combining pooled CRISPR screen and reporters with RNA modification readout, termed CRISPR integrated gRNA and reporter sequencing (CIGAR-seq). Using CIGAR-seq, we discovered NSUN6 as a novel mRNA m5C methyltransferase. Subsequent mRNA bisulfite sequencing in HAP1 cells without or with NSUN6 and/or NSUN2 knockout showed that NSUN6 and NSUN2 worked on non-overlapping subsets of mRNA m5C sites, and together contributed to almost all the m5C modification in mRNA. Finally, using m1A as an example, we demonstrated that CIGAR-seq can be easily adapted for identifying regulators of other mRNA modification.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Emergence of synchronized multicellular mechanosensing from spatiotemporal integration of heterogeneous single-cell information transfer

We quantitatively characterize how noisy and heterogeneous behaviors of individual cells are integrated across a population toward multicellular synchronization by studying the calcium dynamics in mechanically stimulated monolayers of endothelial cells. We used information-theory to quantify the asymmetric information-transfer between pairs of cells and define quantitative measures of how single cells receive or transmit information in the multicellular network. We find that cells take different roles in intercellular information-transfer and that this heterogeneity is associated with synchronization. Cells tended to maintain their roles between consecutive cycles of mechanical stimuli and reinforced them over time, suggesting the existence of a cellular "memory" in intercellular information transfer. Interestingly, we identified a subpopulation of cells characterized by higher probability of both receiving and transmitting information. These "communication hub" roles were stable - once a cell switched to a "communication hub" role it was less probable to switch to other roles. This stableness property of the cells led to gradual enrichment of communication hubs that was associated with the establishment of synchronization. Our analysis demonstrated that multicellular synchronization was established by effective information spread from the (local) single cell to the (global) group scale in the multicellular network. Altogether, we suggest that multicellular synchronization is driven by single cell communication properties, including heterogeneity, functional memory and information flow.

cell biology↗