Single-nucleus transcriptomics of wing sexual dimorphism and scale cell specialization in sulphur butterflies
Fig 6
Single-nucleus transcriptomic profiles of major cell types in the Colias eurytheme male 40% pupal hindwing.
A. UMAP plot representing the 9 clusters resolved across a total of 2,961 cells. B–B′. Violin plots of the number of unique genes (B) and RNA read counts (B′) per nucleus. C–C′. Violin and heatmap plots highlighting differences in mtDNA content across non-scale and scale clusters. D–G. Heatmap plots showing the expression of key marker genes (bold: see main text for citations). Serpent and Rala (arrowheads) in two small unannotated clusters, Stubble (epithelial cells), neuromusculin (nrm, socket cells), rhophilin-2 (wing epithelium), breathless (tracheal epithelium), Notch (non-scales), and shaven (sv, scales). H–H′. Dot plots featuring the expression profiles of 150 differentially expressed genes, chosen among top markers of cluster or cell type identity (Data 1 at https://osf.io/yjvkc/). Panel H includes top markers for non-SOP clusters, socket cells, and scale cells; panel H′ focuses on differentiators between scale sub-types. Dot size reflects the percentage of cells in which gene expression was detected. Color coding allows a relative comparison of gene expression levels within a cluster (horizontal comparisons), but is not proper for vertical comparisons between clusters. Gene names in bold: see main text for references. Feature count matrices and Seurat objects used for the generation of all panels are available at the Open Science Framework Repository [78].