Single-cell analysis reveals the continuum of human lympho-myeloid progenitor cells

We performed single cell RNA sequencing of human haemopoietic lympho-myeloid progenitors with the aim to separate functionally and transcriptionally distinct progenitors within the heterogeneous GMP, LMPP and MLP populations. We performed RNA sequencing in a total of 415 single cells. From donors 1 (CB369) and 2 (CB431), 163/166 and 157/249 cells passed quality control.We further analysed the 320 single cells that passed quality control from two different donors (157 and 163 from each donor; 91 LMPP, 110 MLP and 119 GMP). We performed clustering using Seurat package, which identified 3 clusters of cells. We identified genes that were differentially expressed among cells of the different clusters. The majority of the cells in cluster 1 were MLP, the majority of cluster 3 were GMP while cluster comprised of LMPP and GMP cells. Cluster 1 showed high expression of lymphoid-affiliated genes. Conversely, cluster 3 showed increased expression of myeloid genes, while cluster 2 showed a mixed transcriptional signature. PCA analysis revealed a transcriptional continuum of LMPP, MLP and GMP populations.