Survey of Human Fetal Kidney Development Through Single Cell RNA Sequencing Analysis

Human kidney is a major metabolic organ, which plays a crucial role in regulating homeostasis of human body. However, gene expression characterizations of human fetal kidney development is still not fully explored. Here, we used single-cell RNA-seq to analyze more than 3,000 individual renal cells of human fetal kidneys covering over four months of development in vivo.We found co-expression of self-renewal and differentiation genes in cap mesenchyme, progenitors differed from that of mouse as they persistently express SIX1 throughout the renal morphogenesis. Besides, we recapitulated the transcription factors and signaling pathways potentially important for segmentation of nephron tubule. Furthermore, we explored the human specific features of the heterogeneous collecting duct epithelium. We also dissected the metabolism signatures of fetal kidney as well as the extracellular matrix composition of glomerulus mesangium. Eventually, we identified novel markers for renal tubules. Our study highlights the gene expression features of human fetal kidney development, which will contribute to dissecting the mechanisms of renal dysplasia and congenital nephrotic disease. Here we sequenced 3,543 single cells and 3,023 of them passed the screening criteria, which we set the expressed gene number and transcripts in each cell should respectively above 1000 and 5000.And then we constructed the gene expression landscape throughput kidney organogenesis.