RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Spatial expression programs of the intestinal follicle-associated epithelium
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.04.06.438564
DO 10.1101/2021.04.06.438564
A1 Noam Cohen
A1 Hassan Massalha
A1 Shani Ben-Moshe
A1 Adi Egozi
A1 Milena Rozenberg
A1 Keren Bahar Halpern
A1 Shalev Itzkovitz
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/07/2021.04.06.438564.abstract
AB The intestine is lined with isolated lymphoid follicles (ILFs) that facilitate sampling of luminal antigens to elicit immune responses. Technical challenges related to the scarcity and small sizes of ILFs and their follicle-associated epithelium (FAE) impeded the characterization of their spatial gene expression programs. Here, we combined RNA sequencing of laser capture microdissected tissues with single molecule transcript imaging to obtain a spatial gene expression map of the ILF and its associated FAE in the mouse small intestine. We identified zonated expression programs in both follicles and FAEs, with a decrease in enterocyte anti-microbial and absorption programs and a partial induction of expression programs normally observed at the villus tip. We further identified Lepr+ sub-epithelial telocytes at the FAE top, which are distinct from villus-tip Lgr5+ telocytes. Our analysis exposes the epithelial and mesenchymal cell states associated with ILFs.