Systematic Comparison of High-throughput Single-Cell and Single-Nucleus Transcriptomes during Cardiomyocyte Differentiation.

A comprehensive reference map of all cell types in the human body is necessary for improving our understanding of fundamental biological processes and in diagnosing and treating disease. High-throughput single-cell RNA sequencing techniques have emerged as powerful tools to identify and characterize cell types in complex and heterogeneous tissues. However, extracting intact cells from tissues and organs is often technically challenging or impossible, for example in heart or brain tissue. Single-nucleus RNA sequencing provides an alternative way to obtain transcriptome profiles of such tissues. To systematically assess the differences between high-throughput single-cell and single-nuclei RNA-seq approaches, we compared Drop-seq and DroNc-seq, two microfluidic-based 3' RNA capture technologies that profile total cellular and nuclear RNA, respectively, during a time course experiment of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) differentiating into cardiomyocytes. Clustering of time-series transcriptomes from Drop-seq and DroNc-seq revealed six distinct cell types, five of which were found in both techniques. Furthermore, single-cell trajectories reconstructed from both techniques reproduced expected differentiation dynamics. We then applied DroNc-seq to postmortem heart tissue to test its performance on heterogeneous human tissue samples. Our data confirm that DroNc-seq yields similar results to Drop-seq on matched samples and can be successfully used to generate reference maps for the human cell atlas.

Crystal structures of bis-[(9S,13S,14S)-3-meth-oxy-17-methyl-morphinanium] tetra-chlorido-cobaltate and tetra-chlorido-cuprate.

(9S,13S,14S)-3-Meth-oxy-17-methyl-morphinan (dextromethorphan) forms two isostructural salts with (a) tetra-chlorido-cobaltate, namely bis-[(9S,13S,14S)-3-meth-oxy-17-methyl-morphinanium] tetra-chlorido-cobaltate, (C18H26NO)2[CoCl4], and (b) tetra-chlorido-cuprate, namely bis-[(9S,13S,14S)-3-meth-oxy-17-methyl-morphinanium] tetra-chlorido-cuprate, (C18H26NO)2[CuCl4]. The distorted tetra-hedral anions are located on twofold rotational axes. The dextromethorphan cation can be described as being composed of two ring systems, a tetra-hydro-naphthalene system A+B and a deca-hydro-isoquinolinium subunit C+D, that are nearly perpendicular to one another: the angle between mean planes of the A+B and C+D moieties is 78.8 (1)° for (a) and 79.0 (1)° for (b). Two symmetry-related cations of protonated dextromethorphan are connected to the tetra-chlorido-cobaltate (or tetra-chlorido-cuprate) anions via strong N-H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds, forming neutral ion associates. These associates are packed in the (001) plane with no strong attractive bonding between them. Both compounds are attractive crystalline forms for unambiguous identification of the dextromethorphan and, presumably, of its optical isomer, levomethorphan.