Signals controlling maintenance and differentiation of embryonic gastric epithelial progenitors

A dozen of cells expressing various marker genes was defined as adult gastric epithelial stem cells. Do these cells represent different cell types or they are just the same cell with cycling expression of different marker genes? The origin of the adult stem cells could answer this question. Yet, the identity of the embryonic gastric progenitors was not known. We performed single cell RNA-sequencing to characterize cellular composition of the embryonic stomach at the time of initiation of cytodifferentiation. Our analysis of the scRNA-seq data led to identification of two different embryonic gastric epithelial progenitors. Further, we have defined signals that control their maintenance and differentiation along four main lineages, such as mucous pit, zymogenic, parietal and endocrine cells. Epithelial and mesenchymal cells were FACS isolated from stomachs of 39 mouse embryos at stage E13.5