资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Our understanding of how human embryos develop before gastrulation, including spatial self-organization and cell type ontogeny, remains limited by available two-dimensional technological platforms(1,2) that do not recapitulate the in vivo conditions(3-5). Here we report a three-dimensional (3D) blastocyst-culture system that enables human blastocyst development up to the primitive streak anlage stage. These 3D embryos mimic developmental landmarks and 3D architectures in vivo, including the embryonic disc, amnion, basement membrane, primary and primate unique secondary yolk sac, formation of anterior-posterior polarity and primitive streak anlage. Using single-cell transcriptome profiling, we delineate ontology and regulatory networks that underlie the segregation of epiblast, primitive endoderm and trophoblast. Compared with epiblasts, the amniotic epithelium shows unique and characteristic phenotypes. After implantation, specific pathways and transcription factors trigger the differentiation of cytotrophoblasts, extravillous cytotrophoblasts and syncytiotrophoblasts. Epiblasts undergo a transition to pluripotency upon implantation, and the transcriptome of these cells is maintained until the generation of the primitive streak anlage. These developmental processes are driven by different pluripotency factors. Together, findings from our 3D-culture approach help to determine the molecular and morphogenetic developmental landscape that occurs during human embryogenesis.

A 3D culture system to model human embryonic development, together with single-cell transcriptome profiling, provides insights into the molecular developmental landscape during human post-implantation embryogenesis.

Various species of the intestinal microbiota have been associated with the development of colorectal cancer(1,2), but it has not been demonstrated that bacteria have a direct role in the occurrence of oncogenic mutations. Escherichia coli can carry the pathogenicity island pks, which encodes a set of enzymes that synthesize colibactin(3). This compound is believed to alkylate DNA on adenine residues(4,5) and induces double-strand breaks in cultured cells(3). Here we expose human intestinal organoids to genotoxic pks(+)E. coli by repeated luminal injection over five months. Whole-genome sequencing of clonal organoids before and after this exposure revealed a distinct mutational signature that was absent from organoids injected with isogenic pks-mutant bacteria. The same mutational signature was detected in a subset of 5,876 human cancer genomes from two independent cohorts, predominantly in colorectal cancer. Our study describes a distinct mutational signature in colorectal cancer and implies that the underlying mutational process results directly from past exposure to bacteria carrying the colibactin-producing pks pathogenicity island.

Organoids derived from human intestinal cells that are co-cultured with bacteria carrying the genotoxic pks(+) island develop a distinct mutational signature associated with colorectal cancer.