Single-nucleus transcriptomics of wing sexual dimorphism and scale cell specialization in sulphur butterflies
Fig 8
Transcriptional divergence of UVI and spatulate scale cell precursors.
All experiments correspond to male wing tissues at 40% pupal development. A–A′. Heatmap plot of the 145 most-significant differentially expressed genes in clusters Scale2 and Scale3 relative to the remaining scale cell clusters (Data 2-3 at https://osf.io/yjvkc/). The top-left panel (A) shows genes downregulated in Scale2 and Scale3. The remaining panels (A–A′) show genes that are enriched in either or both of these clusters. Bold: see text for details. Blue: see panels C–E for spatial expression. B. Violin plots for Bab and marker genes used for the spatial identification of the Scale2 and Scale3 cluster. C. HCR localization of Dsx mRNA (exons 1-2) in male dorsal wings. D. HCR localization of Arylsulfatase (green) and Abp1 (magenta), respectively, tested as positive and negative markers of the Scale2 cluster, in male dorsal wings. Arylsulfatase is found in the dorsal cover scales of the male marginal region. Arrowheads: ground scale expression of Abp1 in the marginal region, without overlap with Arylsulfatase. E. HCR localization of Sulfatase1 mRNA, tested as a marker of the Scale3 cluster, in the medial region of a male dorsal hindwing. Expression is restricted to alternating scale precursor cells corresponding to the presumptive UVI scales, while ground scale precursor cells (gs; dotted lines) are negative. Scale bars: C-D (top) = 1 mm; C, D insets (bottom) = 100 μm; E = 10 μm. Feature count matrices and Seurat objects used for the generation of Fig 8A, 8B are available at the Open Science Framework Repository [78].