Global Characterization of Megakaryocytes in Bone Marrow, Peripheral Blood, and Cord Blood by Single-cell RNA Sequencing

Megakaryocytes (MK) are mainly derived from bone marrow (BM) and are
mainly involved in platelet production. Recent studies have shown that MK
derived from BM may have immune function, and that MK from peripheral
blood (PB) are associated with prostate cancer. We analyzed more than 1.2
million single-cell transcriptome data from 132 samples of PB, BM, and
cord blood (CB) from healthy individuals and patients, and obtained 4474
MK single cell and 14 MK subtypes. We found that MK were widely
distributed and the amount of MK in PB was more than that in BM and there
were specificity MK subtypes in PB. We found classical MK1 with typical MK
characteristics and non-classical MK2 closely related to immunity which
was the most common subtype in BM and CB. Classical MK1 was closely
related to Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) and has diagnostic ability.
MK2 may have potential adaptive immune function and play a role in tumor
NSCLC and autoimmune diseases Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. This study
deepened our understanding of MK and suggested that MK had potential
immune functions and was involved in various diseases.