Single-cell multiomic characterization of erythroid cells (cultured human BEL-A cell line) with a panel of 118 genes and 7 surface markers on the BD Rhapsody platform

We used the BD Rhapsody multi-omics platform to perform a targeted quantification of 118 erythroid mRNA species and seven erythroid surface proteins in developing erythroid cells derived from the human erythroid cell line BEL-A. The goal of the project was to detect heterogeneity among developing human red blood cells independent of their state of maturity and relate this to their expression of fetal haemoglobin-specific globin chains. A gene-targeted approach was selected to increase the power to evaluate ranscripts of interest and to exclude alpha and beta globin mRNA, which tend to swamp experimental data in more mature precursors and reticulocytes. Overall design: BEL-A cells were cultured and harvested during the expansion phase (mostly proerythroblasts) and on day 2 of the differentiation phase (mostly basophilic erythroblasts). The main objective of the study was to charaterise fetal-haemoglobin expressing erythroid precursors (Fcell precursors) regarding their gene expression profiles and characteristic surface markers CD71, CD36, CD45, CD44, CD34, CD235a and CD49d. Heterogeneity was observed within differentiation stages regarding the epression of the two HbF specific globin chain enes HBG1 and HBG2 and the long non-coding RNA BGL2. (Manuscript under review Rooks et al 2025).