Single Cells Make Seashells on the Seashore: using scRNAseq to uncover the role of haemocytes in molluscan biomineralization

软体动物是怎样造壳的？贝类养殖者希望培育具有坚固外壳的抗病动物，气候变化科学家担心温暖、酸性更强的海洋中钙化物的命运，生物技术工业则开采贝壳中的生物活性化合物和材料特性。尽管数百年的科学好奇心，我们对贝壳生产的细胞基础的理解是不完整的。在2004年，有人假设免疫细胞，称为血细胞，制造细胞内钙晶体并将其存款到外壳上。最近，转录组学和蛋白质组学等方法揭示了血细胞具有可以指示生物矿化功能的分子特征。但是，仍然缺乏一个完整的软体动物免疫细胞发育（造血）描述和功能测试，以确认生物矿化的作用。这个项目要解决的主要问题是：免疫细胞，称为血细胞，参与软体动物壳的分泌吗？为了解开血细胞在生物矿化中的潜在作用，从它们在免疫中的已知功能中，该项目将在两个软体动物模型系统中使用尖端技术单细胞RNA测序：Crepidula fornicata和Crassostrea gigas。该项目将询问scRNAseq数据集，以揭示产生血细胞的细胞谱系和发育事件，然后进行实验以实证测试其功能。

How do molluscs build their shells? Shellfish farmers want to grow disease-resistant animals with strong shells, climate change scientists are concerned about the fate of calcifiers in warmer more acidic oceans, and biotechnology industries mine shells for bioactive compounds and material properties. Despite hundreds of years of scientific curiosity, our understanding on the cellular basis of seashell production is incomplete. In 2004, it was hypothesised that immune cells, called haemocytes, make intracellular calcium crystals and deposit them onto the shell. More recently, methods such as transcriptomics and proteomics revealed haemocytes have a molecular signature that could indicate biomineralisation functions. But a complete molluscan immune cell development (haematopoiesis) description and functional tests to confirm roles in biomineralisation are still lacking. The broad question this project will address is: do immune cells, called haemocytes, participate in mollusc shell secretion? To disentangle the potential role of haemocytes in biomineralization, from their known functions in immunity, the project will use the cutting-edge technique single-cell RNA-sequencing, in two mollusc model systems: Crepidula fornicata and Crassostrea gigas. The project will interrogate scRNAseq datasets to uncover the cell lineage and developmental events that give rise to haemocytes before conducting experiments to empirically test their function.