What is a cell type?

A next step for cell atlases should be to chart perturbations in human model systems International efforts are underway to provide a comprehensive survey of cells across the human life span ( 1 , 2 ). These efforts assign cell “types” on the basis of a set of information-rich molecular features (the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 381; no. 6659; pp. 733 - 734
Main Authors Fleck, Jonas Simon, Camp, J. Gray, Treutlein, Barbara
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington The American Association for the Advancement of Science 18.08.2023
Subjects
Human tissues
Ontogeny
Phenotypes
Proteomes
Tissue engineering
Transcriptomes
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:A next step for cell atlases should be to chart perturbations in human model systems International efforts are underway to provide a comprehensive survey of cells across the human life span ( 1 , 2 ). These efforts assign cell “types” on the basis of a set of information-rich molecular features (the cell phenotype), which include portions of the transcriptome, epigenome, and proteome, as well as the developmental lineage ( 3 , 4 ). These features can be quantified in single cells in suspension after tissue dissociation or within intact tissue. The resulting cell atlases provide insight into the organization, ontogeny, and evolution of human tissues. They also help to explore disease susceptibilities, navigate therapy development, and benchmark cell and tissue engineering. However, the atlas data can often identify phenotypic diversity (referred to as different cell states) among cells of the same type, raising the following question: What is a human cell type?
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.adf6162