Effect of mitochondrial haplotype on gene expression in inter-species composite cell lines formed through cell fusion

It is unclear, however, how often mitochondria from one or both contributor species are inherited by these cells. We generated a panel of inter-species composite iPSCs by fusing human, chimpanzee, and bonobo contributor cell lines, labeling the composite cell line of origin using MULTI-seq barcodes.

We then performed single cell RNA sequencing and demultiplexed cells using the CellBouncer toolkit. After identifying the species of origin of the mitochondria in all cells, we found that human mitochondria tend to predominate over those of other species in fusions including human contributor lines, and that cells containing two species' mitochondria are rare and show signs of apoptotic signaling, along with abnormal mitochondrial gene regulation.