Single-cell profiling of lncRNAs in human germ cells and molecular analysis reveals transcriptional regulation of LNC1845 on LHX8

We report the presence of many long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) which were specifically expressed in the germ cells during human gonadal development by single-cell profiling, and the functional characterization of one divergent lncRNA, LNC1845. Functional dissection using in vitro differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to germ cells revealed the regulatory role of LNC1845 on a transcription factor essential for ovarian follicle development, LHX8. Molecular characterization elucidated that LNC1845 upregulated LHX8 expression by modulating the levels of histone modifications, H3K4me3 and H3K27Ac. Our study provides a comprehensive analysis of lncRNAs in developing human germ cells and a concrete example of lncRNA acting as a cis regulator during female germ cell development. We checked the differences between ESCs, WT PGCLCs and LNC1845KO PGCLCs, LHX8 OE H9 cells by RNA-seq, and examined 2 different histone modifications, H3K4me3 and H3K27Ac, in PGCLCs from WT H9, LNC1845 KO and OE cell lines, and performed FOXP3 ChIP-Seq in FOXP3 OE 293FT cells.