Identification of a mesenchymal progenitor cell hierarchy in adipose tissue (Bulk RNA-seq)

The healthy growth of adipose tissue depends on the capacity of progenitor cells to undergo denovo adipogenesis. However, the cellular hierarchy and mechanisms governing adipocyte progenitor differentiation are incompletely understood. Here, we identify a lineage hierarchy25 consisting of distinct mesenchymal cell types present in mouse and human adipose tissue. Cells marked by Dpp4 expression are highly proliferative, multipotent progenitors that give rise to Icam1+ committed pre-adipocytes and a related adipogenic population marked by Clec11a and Cd142 expression. TGFbeta maintains DPP4+ cell identity and inhibits adipogenic commitment of DPP4+ and CD142+ cells. Intriguingly, DPP4+ progenitors reside in the reticular interstitium that30 envelope many organs including adipose depots. Altogether, this study defines the adipose lineagehierarchy and identifies a new anatomical niche for multipotent mesenchymal progenitors. mRNA profiles of 12-day old DPP4+, ICAM1+, and CD142+ cells from wild type (WT) mice were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate. Followed by DESeq2 analysis with outputs of pairwise comparisons of differential expression in the three cell types.