Somatic mosaicism in the mature brain reveals clonal cellular distributions during cortical development

Abstract

The structure of the human neocortex underlies species-specific features and is a reflection of intricate developmental programs. Here we analyzed neocortical cellular lineages through a comprehensive assessment of brain somatic mosaicism--which acts as a neutral recorder of lineage history. We employed deep whole genome and variant sequencing in a single postmortem neurotypical human brain across 25 anatomic regions and three distinct modalities: bulk geographies, sorted cell types, and single nuclei. We identified 259 mosaic variants, revealing remarkable differences in localization, clonal abundance, cell type specificity, and clade distribution. We identified a set of hierarchical cellular diffusion barriers, whereby the left-right axis separation of the neocortex occurs prior to anterior-posterior and dorsal-ventral axis separation. We also found that stochastic distribution is a driver of clonal dispersion, and that rules regarding cellular lineages and anatomical boundaries are often ignored. Our data provides a comprehensive analysis of brain somatic mosaicism across the human cerebral cortex, deconvolving clonal distributions and migration patterns in the human embryo. One Sentence SummaryComprehensive evaluation of brain somatic mosaicism in the adult human identifies rules governing cellular distribution during embryogenesis.