A transcriptome dataset from porcine stem cells with differing adipogenic capacity

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that can be readily harvested from animal body tissues and grown in culture. MSC cultures contain fat stem cells (pre-adipocytes) in addition to other mesenchymal progenitor cell types. Farm animal MSCs provide a cell source of choice for cultivated fat production, an important sector within the wider cultivated meat industry. However, MSCs are highly heterogenous by nature, containing only a fraction of bona-fide progenitor cells capable of differentiating selectively into adipocytes thus limiting the potential for industrial cultivated fat applications. Elucidating the molecular signatures of pre-adipocytes from farm animal species would facilitate selective enrichment of MSCs to enable efficient scale-up culture of fat. Here we describe bulk RNA sequencing datasets from clonal cell populations obtained by single-cell fluorescence activated sorting of porcine MSCs, and classified as having either high (H) or low (L) fat-forming (adipogenic) capacity in culture, as determined by chemically-induced differentiation followed by staining with the lipid dye, Oil Red O. We present raw file and results of bioinformatics analyses of sequencing data. PCA plots showed partial overlapping of gene expression profiles from H and L cell populations. Differential gene expression analyses revealed 30 upregulated transcripts and 67 downregulated transcripts in H relative to L clones, with upregulated transcripts including several known adipogenic genes such as PPARG and FABP4. These datasets are publicly available for use in workflows, and could provide novel information on pre-adipocyte biology in livestock in turn helping improve the sustainability of both traditional and cultivated meat production.