Dynamic transcriptome profiles within spermatogonial and spermatocyte populations during postnatal testis maturation revealed by single-cell sequencing

This analysis represents the first comprehensive sampling of germ cells in the developing testis over time, at high-resolution, single-cell depth. From these analyses, we have not only revealed novel genetic regulatory signatures of murine germ cells over time, but have also demonstrated that cell types positive for a single marker gene have the capacity to change dramatically during testis maturation, and therefore cells of a particular “identity” may differ significantly from postnatal to adult life. Single-cell suspensions of mammalian testes ranging from PND6 to adult were processed for single-cell RNAseq (10x Genomics Chromium) and libraries were sequenced on a NextSeq500 (Illumina).