A Cell Atlas of Swine Immune System Development 

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Presentation Time: 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM
Poster Board Number: B899
Abstract ID: 6279

Presenting Author:
Alyssa May , Graduate Research Assistant at Univ. of Missouri, Columbia

Abstract:

Swine are an agricultural species of global economic importance. Additionally, pigs are increasingly used as biomedical models for a range of human diseases as they share many physiological, metabolic, and developmental similarities to humans. Diseases that involve the immune system, especially those caused by infectious diseases, can result in significant losses in swine production. Understanding the porcine immune system is crucial for efforts to control and prevent such diseases. It also promotes using pigs as a preclinical model to study human immunological illnesses. Nevertheless, many aspects of the pig’s immune system remain poorly understood. Here, we describe using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to create a cell atlas of pig fetal hematopoiesis which was compared to published human scRNA-seq datasets. Cells isolated from fetal liver were collected at 45 days of gestation (DOG), while cells from thymi and bone marrow were isolated at 48-, 60-, 75-, and 90- DOG as well as 1 day and 7 months after birth. Our dataset provides a reference map of immune cell differentiation across major immune organs and shows conserved features as well as species-specific differences in cell states and cell types compared with human hematopoiesis. The result is a resource to better understand the porcine immune system and immune-related diseases in pigs.