An integrated atlas of human placental development delineates essential regulators of trophoblast stem cells.

Abstract

The trophoblast lineage safeguards fetal development by mediating embryo implantation, immune tolerance, nutritional supply and gas exchange. Human trophoblast stem cells (hTSCs) provide a platform to study lineage specification of placental tissues; however, the regulatory network controlling self-renewal remains elusive. Here, we present a single-cell atlas of human trophoblast development from zygote to mid-gestation together with single-cell profiling of hTSCs. We determine the transcriptional networks of trophoblast lineages in vivo and leverage probabilistic modelling to identify a role for MAPK signalling in trophoblast differentiation. Placenta- and blastoid-derived hTSCs consistently map between late trophectoderm and early cytotrophoblast, in contrast to blastoid-trophoblast, which correspond to trophectoderm. We functionally assess the requirement of the predicted cytotrophoblast network in an siRNA-screen and reveal 15 essential regulators for hTSC self-renewal, including MAZ, NFE2L3, TFAP2C, NR2F2 and CTNNB1. Our human trophoblast atlas provides a powerful analytical resource to delineate trophoblast cell fate acquisition, to elucidate transcription factors required for hTSC self-renewal and to gauge the developmental stage of in vitro cultured cells.