LncRNA profiling of human lymphoid progenitors reveals transcriptional divergence of B and T lineages

To elucidate the transcriptional landscape that regulates human lymphoid commitment during postnatal life, we used RNA sequencing to assemble the long non-coding transcriptome across human bone marrow and thymic progenitors spanning the earliest stages of B and T lymphoid specification. Over 3000 novel long non-coding RNA genes (lncRNAs) were revealed through the analysis of these rare populations. Lymphoid commitment was characterized by lncRNA expression patterns that were highly stage-specific and more lineage-specific than protein coding patterns. Protein-coding genes co-expressed with neighboring lncRNA genes were enriched for ontologies related to lymphoid differentiation. The exquisite cell-type specificity of global lncRNA expression patterns independently revealed new developmental relationships between the earliest progenitors in the human bone marrow and thymus.