Single-cell RNA analyses of cattle ruminal epithelial cells

Comprehensive analyses of tissues at single-cell level will benefit our understanding of genetic bases for complex traits. Here we present an initial effort of single-cell transcriptomic analyses of cattle ruminal epithelial cells during the rumen development. We obtained 5064 and 1372 cells from Holstein ruminal epithelial cells before and after weaning, respectively. We reported 6 cell types across their temporal and spatial distributions, which were partially correlated with rumen epithelium layer’s structures and functions. We also reported a distinct sets of cell markers for these cell types, for example, CRA1, HMMR, MKI67, and EZH2 for the dividing epithelial cells and the TGFB pathway and the keratin gene family for keratinized epithelial cells. Our proposed a cell lineage model may contribute to the understanding of cattle rumen epithelial proliferation and development. Two samples from cattle rumen