Gene expression kinetics in individual plasmodial cells reveal alternative programs of differential regulation during commitment and differentiation

During its life cycle, the amoebozoon Physarum polycephalum forms multinucleate plasmodial cells that can grow to macroscopic size while maintaining a naturally synchronous population of nuclei. Sporulation-competent plasmodia were stimulated through photoactivation of the phytochrome photoreceptor and the expression of sporulation marker genes was analyzed quantitatively by repeatedly taking samples of the same plasmodial cell at successive time points after the stimulus pulse. Principal component analysis of the gene expression data revealed that plasmodial cells take different trajectories leading to cell fate decision and differentiation and suggested that averaging over individual cells is inappropriate. Queries for genes with pairwise correlated expression kinetics revealed qualitatively different patterns of co-regulation, indicating that alternative programs of differential regulation are operational in individual plasmodial cells. At the single cell level, the response to stimulation of a non-sporulating mutant was qualitatively different as compared to the wild type with respect to the differentially regulated genes and their patterns of co-regulation. The observation of individual differences during commitment and differentiation supports the concept of a Waddington-type quasipotential landscape for the regulatory control of cell differentiation. Comparison of wild type and sporulation mutant data further supports the idea that mutations may impact the topology of this landscape.