Project description:The liver plays a crucial role in essential physiological processes, and its impaired function due to liver fibrosis from various causes is an increasingly significant health issue. The liver's functionality relies on the precise arrangement of its cellular structures, yet the molecular architecture of these units remains only partially understood. We created a comprehensive molecular atlas detailing all the major cell types present in the adult mouse liver through deep single-cell RNA sequencing. Our analysis offers new insights into hepatic endothelial and mesenchymal cells, specifically highlighting the differences between the cells of the periportal microvasculature, the sinusoids, and the portal vein, the latter exhibiting a mixed arterio-venous phenotype. We identified distinct subpopulations of hepatic stellate cells, fibroblasts, and vascular mural cells located in different anatomical regions. Comparisons with transcriptomic data from disease models indicate that a previously unrecognized capsular population of hepatic stellate cells expands in response to fibrotic disease. Our findings reveal that various fibroblast subpopulations respond differently to pathological insults. This data resource will be invaluable for advancing therapeutic interventions targeting hepatic diseases.
Project description:Deciphering the tissue origin of cfDNA can reveal abnormal cell death because of diseases, which has great clinical potential in disease detection and monitoring. Here we present one of the largest comprehensive and high-resolution methylation atlas based on Reduced Representative Bisulfite Sequencing (RRBS) data of 521 noncancer tissue samples spanning 29 major types of human tissues. We systematically identified fragment-level tissue-specific methylation patterns and extensively alidated the methylation signature atlas in independent methylation datasets, orthogonal epigenomic markers, and transcription regulatory elements. Based on the rich tissue methylation atlas, we develop the first supervised tissue deconvolution approach, a deep-learning-powered model, cfSort, for sensitive and accurate tissue deconvolution in cfDNA.
Project description:Whole-genome transcriptional profiles of rice cell types, isolated by laser-capture microdissection. The first comprehensive multi-organ cell type transcriptome atlas from a plant, with 40 distinct cell types from several developmental stages of seeds, shoots and roots, reveals cell-specific promoter motifs, interaction partner candidates, hormone response centers, and other previously unrecognized cellular properties and patterns. Keywords: Cell type comparison
Project description:The mammalian brain consists of millions to billions of cells that are organized into numerous cell types with specific spatial distribution patterns and structural and functional properties. An essential step towards understanding brain function is to obtain a parts list, i.e., a catalog of cell types, of the brain. Here, we report a comprehensive and high-resolution transcriptomic and spatial cell type atlas for the whole adult mouse brain. The cell type atlas was created based on the combination of two single-cell-level, whole-brain-scale datasets: a single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) dataset of ~7 million cells profiled (~4.0 million cells passing quality control), and a spatially resolved transcriptomic dataset of ~4.3 million cells using MERFISH. The atlas is hierarchically organized into four nested levels of classification: 34 classes, 338 subclasses, 1,201 supertypes and 5,322 clusters. We present a newly developed online platform, Allen Brain Cell (ABC) Atlas, to visualize the mouse whole brain cell type taxonomy and atlas along with the scRNA-seq and MERFISH data and metadata sets. We systematically analyzed the neuronal, non-neuronal, and immature neuronal cell types across the brain and identified a high degree of correspondence between transcriptomic identity and spatial specificity for each cell type. The results reveal unique features of cell type organization in different brain regions, in particular, a dichotomy between the dorsal and ventral parts of the brain: the dorsal part contains relatively fewer yet highly divergent neuronal types, whereas the ventral part contains more numerous neuronal types that are more closely related to each other. We also systematically characterized cell-type specific expression of neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and transcription factors. The study uncovered extraordinary diversity and heterogeneity in neurotransmitter and neuropeptide expression and co-expression patterns in different cell types across the brain, suggesting they mediate myriad modes of intercellular communications. Finally, we found that transcription factors are major determinants of cell type classification in the adult mouse brain and identified a combinatorial transcription factor code that defines cell types across all parts of the brain. The whole-mouse-brain transcriptomic and spatial cell type atlas establishes a benchmark reference atlas and a foundational resource for deep and integrative investigations of cellular and circuit function, development, and evolution of the mammalian brain.
Project description:We report the application of single-cell based sequencing for high throughput profiling of the mouse urinary bladder. By utilizing multiple dissociation techniques and library preparation techniques we generated an atlas comprising 43,119 cells including major cell types absent from previous reports. We found that previous single-cell profiling of the mouse bladder lacked a major cell type in the detrusor smooth muscle and incorrectly annotated other cell types such as mesothelial cells. Using the atlas, we elucidated aspects of bladder biology including urothelial differentiation, the identity of interstitial cells of Cajal, detrusor smooth muscle control and immune distributions. Finally, we combine the single-cell based sequencing with spatial transcriptomics and imaging mass cytometry to add spatial context to transcriptomic profiling.