Single-nucleus RNA-seq of adult female and male mouse livers for sex-biased gene expression analyses

To obtain new insight into the sexual dimorphism of mammalian livers, single-nucleus RNA-seq was performed on the liver samples from two female and two male adult mice. The single-nucleus libraries were generated on the 10X Chromium Next GEM Single Cell 3' platform and sequenced on Illumina NextSeq 550. We used the data to understand the heterogeneity and sex-biased gene expression of liver cell types. The data revealed significant sex differences primarily focused on hepatocytes. Specifically, from the sex-biased genes detected at the bulk tissue level, we observed that male-biased genes are more highly expressed in male hepatocytes, and female-biased genes are more highly expressed in female hepatocytes.为深入探究哺乳动物肝脏的性别二态性，本研究针对2只成年雌性小鼠与2只成年雄性小鼠的肝脏样本开展了单细胞核RNA测序（single-nucleus RNA-seq）。单细胞核文库于10X Chromium Next GEM Single Cell 3' 平台构建，并在Illumina NextSeq 550测序平台完成测序。本研究利用该数据集解析肝脏细胞类型的异质性与性别偏向性基因表达特征。数据分析显示，显著的性别差异主要集中于肝细胞（hepatocytes）。具体而言，针对批量组织（bulk tissue）层面检测到的性别偏向性基因，我们观察到雄性偏向基因在雄性肝细胞中呈高表达状态，雌性偏向基因则在雌性肝细胞中高表达。