A transcriptional program shared across lineages underlies cell differentiation during metazoan development

BackgroundDuring development, most cells undergo striking changes in order to develop into functional tissues. All along this process, the identity of each tissue arises from the particular combination of regulatory transcription factors that specifically control the expression of relevant genes for growth, pattern formation and differentiation. In this scenario, regulation of gene expression turns out to be essential to determine cell fate and tissue specificity. ResultsTo characterize the dynamic transcriptional profiles during cellular differentiation, we tracked down the transcriptome of committed cells in different Drosophila melanogaster tissues and compartments at a number of developmental stages. We found that during fly development, temporal transcriptional changes shared across lineages are much larger than spatial lineage-specific transcriptional changes, and that cellular differentiation is dominated by a transcriptional program, common to multiple lineages, that governs the transition from undifferentiated to fully differentiated cells independently from the differentiation end point. The program is under weak epigenetic regulation, and it is characterized by downregulation of genes associated with cell cycle, and concomitant activation of genes involved in oxidative metabolism. Largely orthogonal to this program, tissue specific transcriptional programs, defined by a comparatively small number of genes are responsible for lineage specification. Transcriptome comparisons with worm, mouse and human, reveal that this transcriptional differentiation program is broadly conserved within metazoans. ConclusionsOur data provides a novel perspective to metazoan development, and strongly suggest a model, in which the main transcriptional drive during cell type and tissue differentiation is the transition from precursor undifferentiated to terminally differentiated cells, irrespective of cell type.