Single-cell epigenomic tracing of lifelong endothelial cell plasticity across mouse organs

Abstract

Endothelial cells (ECs) across ages and tissues are highly heterogeneous in developmental origins, structures, functions, and cellular plasticity. Here, we applied CoBATCH for single-cell epigenomic tracing of dynamic EC lineage histories in five mouse organs from development to ageing. Our analyses showed that epigenomic memory reflects both developmental origins and tissue-restricted specialization of EC sublineages but with varying time lengths across organs. To gain insights into cellular plasticity of ECs, we identified bivalent chromatin occupancy of otherwise mutually exclusive EC- (ERG) and mesenchymal-specific (TWIST1/SNAI1) transcription factors promoting endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition. We further revealed that pseudotime trajectories by histone modifications H3K36me3 and H3K27ac faithfully recapitulate short- and long-range EC fate change over senescence, respectively. Together, our data provide a unique exploration of chromatin-level cell fate regulation of organotypic EC lineages across the lifespan. One-Sentence SummarySingle-cell chromatin binding is examined for tracing endothelial cell lineages in mouse organs across the lifespan.