Single nucleus pituitary transcriptomic and epigenetic landscape reveals human stem cell heterogeneity with diverse regulatory mechanisms

Abstract

Despite their importance in tissue homeostasis and renewal, human pituitary stem cells (PSCs) are incompletely characterized. We describe a human single nucleus (sn) RNAseq and ATACseq resource from pediatric, adult, and aged pituitaries (snpituitaryatlas.princeton.edu) and characterize cell type-specific gene expression and chromatin accessibility programs for all major pituitary cell lineages. We identify uncommitted PSCs, committing progenitor cells, and sex differences. Pseudotime trajectory analysis indicates that early life PSCs are distinct from the other age groups. Linear modeling of same-cell multiome data identifies regulatory domain accessibility sites and transcription factors (TFs) that are significantly associated with gene expression in PSCs compared to other cell types and within PSCs. Modeling the heterogeneous expression of two markers for committing cell lineages among PSCs shows significant correlation with regulatory domain accessibility for GATA3, but with TF expression for POMC. These findings characterize human stem cell lineages and reveal diverse mechanisms regulating key PSC genes.