Expression profiling of clonally derived skeletal progenitors from mouse bone marrow

Bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) were isolated from the femora and tibiae of irtTA-GBD*-TAg transgenic mice. Using cellular cloning we established skeletal progenitors with distinct differentiation properties and analysed their transcriptome. Unipotent osteogenic and adipogenic cells expressed specific transcriptional programs whereas bipotent clones combined expression of those genes and did not show a unique signature. Expression profiling (RNA-seq) of two independent clones from different mice representing skeletal progenitors with the following characteristics: tripotent clones (Osteogenic, Adipogenic, Chondrogenic = OAC1 and OAC2); bipotent clones (Osteogenic, Adipogenic = OA1 and OA2); unipotent clones (Osteogenic = O1 and O2; Adipogenic = A1 and A2). Further, we prepared and sequenced pools of several other clones from these two mice, with the following properties: tripotent clones (Osteogenic, Adipogenic, Chondrogenic = OAC3); bipotent clones (Osteogenic, Adipogenic = OA3; Osteogenic, Chondrogenic = OC3; Adipogenic, Chondrogenic = AC3); unipotent clones (Osteogenic = O3; Adipogenic = A3).