TET3 regulates cellular terminal differentiation at the metabolic level

Abstract

TET-family members play an essential role in cell fate commitment and their dysfunctions result in arrested differentiation. TET3 is ubiquitously expressed in differentiated cells and essential in postnatal development due to yet unknown reasons. To define TET3 function in cell differentiation, we profiled the intestinal epithelium at the single-cell level from wild-type and Tet3 knockout mice. Here we show that, in the absence of TET3, enterocytes exhibit an aberrant differentiation trajectory and do not acquire a physiological cell identity due to an impairment in oxidative phosphorylation, specifically due to an ATP synthase assembly deficiency. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that the loss of TET3 compromises mitochondrial metabolic maturation and leads to a metabolic profile enriched in glycolysis-dependent anabolic pathways similar to those observed in undifferentiated cells. Collectively, our study has revealed the molecular mechanism by which TET3 regulates terminal differentiation at the metabolic level.