Cellular atlases are unlocking the mysteries of the human body
The Human Cell Atlas: towards a first draft atlas
Figure 1 | Human cellular atlases. a, The Human Cell Atlas project aims to create cellular maps of human organs and tissues throughout life, and in health and disease. Cells are isolated from tissues during different stages of development and from cell-based organ models (organoids). Cell types and states can be captured using single-cell profiling techniques, mainly transcriptomics (using RNA transcripts to examine gene expression) but also other methods such as epigenomics (examining regulation of gene expression by assessing modifications to DNA and histone proteins). Sophisticated computational analyses are used to classify cell types and integrate information from different data types. b, Cellular atlases can be used to make inferences about human biology: spatial transcriptomics enables cells of defined type to be mapped to the tissue from which they originated, so that tissue architecture can be examined; cell differentiation and maturation during developmental processes can be traced; interactions between cells of different types can be inferred; and comparisons can be made between healthy and diseased tissue.
