| Summary: | Objective To predict potential regulators of terminal erythroid differentiation by single-cell transcriptome data mining, and then focus on exploring the expression pattern and function of nuclear transcription factors NFYB and NFYC in terminal erythroid differentiation. Methods Using published single-cell transcriptome data of human terminal erythropoiesis, SCENIC analysis was performed to predict stage-specific transcription regulators. The expression levels of two predicted regulators, NFYB and NFYC, in different stages of human and mouse terminal erythropoiesis were first analyzed in public bulk RNA-seq data; cells among different stages of terminal erythroid differentiation in mouse fetal liver were sorted by flow cytometry, NFYB and NFYC expression levels were then detected by RT-qPCR. In addition, the expression of NFYB and NFYC was inhibited by lentivirus-mediated shRNA interference and the efficiency of terminal erythroid differentiation and enucleation was examined. Results NFYB and NFYC were potential regulators at early stage of terminal erythropoiesis by SCENIC analysis. Their expression level was high at early stage of both human and mouse terminal erythropoiesis and then decreased at the last stage. Knockdown of Nfyb and Nfyc in mouse fetal liver derived erythroid cells significantly inhibited terminal erythroid differentiation and enucleation (P＜0.05). Conclusions NFYB and NFYC promote the terminal erythroid differentiation.
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