The dynamics of gene expression in vertebrate embryogenesis at single-cell resolution

Mapping the vertebrate developmental landscape As embryos develop, numerous cell types with distinct functions and morphologies arise from pluripotent cells. Three research groups have used single-cell RNA sequencing to analyze the transcriptional changes accompanying development of vertebrate embryos (see the Perspective by Harland). Wagner et al. sequenced the transcriptomes of more than 90,000 cells throughout zebrafish development to reveal how cells differentiate during axis patterning, germ layer formation, and early organogenesis. Farrell et al. profiled the transcriptomes of tens of thousands of embryonic cells and applied a computational approach to construct a branching tree describing the transcriptional trajectories that lead to 25 distinct zebrafish cell types. The branching tree revealed how cells change their gene expression as they become more and more specialized. Briggs et al. examined whole frog embryos, spanning zygotic genome activation through early organogenesis, to map cell states and differentiation across all cell lineages over time. These data and approaches pave the way for the comprehensive reconstruction of transcriptional trajectories during development. Science , this issue p. 981 , p. eaar3131 , p. eaar5780 ; see also p. 967