Human Cell Atlas

Global health science project

Human Cell AtlasContent

Description| The Human Cell Atlas is a global consortium that is creating detailed maps of the cells in the human body to transform understanding of health and disease.
Organisms| Human
Contact
Primary citation| Regev, Aviv; et al. (Human Cell Atlas Organizing Committee) (2018). "The Human Cell Atlas White Paper". arXiv:1810.05192 [q-bio.TO].
Access
Website| www.humancellatlas.org

The Human Cell Atlas is a global project to describe all cell types in the human body.[1] The initiative was announced by a consortium after its inaugural meeting in London in October 2016, which established the first phase of the project.[2][3] Aviv Regev and Sarah Teichmann defined the goals of the project at that meeting,[4] which was convened by the Broad Institute, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Wellcome Trust.[5] Regev and Teichmann lead the project.[6] As of 2024, the project has mapped approximately 62 million human cells into 18 biological networks, which includes cells from vital systems such as the nervous system, lungs, heart, intestine and immune system.[7]

## Description

[edit]

The Human Cell Atlas will catalogue a cell based on several criteria, specifically the cell type, its state, its location in the body, the transitions it undergoes, and its lineage.[8] It will gather data from existing research, and integrate it with data collected in future research projects.[3] Among the data it will collect is the fluxome, genome, metabolome, proteome, and transcriptome.[3]

Its scope is to categorize the 37 trillion cells[citation needed] of the human body to determine which genes each cell expresses by sampling cells from all parts of the body.[9]

All aspects of the project will be made "available to the public for free", including software and results.[10]

By April 2018, the project included more than 480 researchers conducting 185 projects.[11]

## Funding

[edit]

In October 2017, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced funding for 38 projects related to the Human Cell Atlas.[12] Among them was a grant of undisclosed value to the Zuckerman Institute of the Columbia University Medical Center at Columbia University.[10] The grant, titled "A strategy for mapping the human spinal cord with single cell resolution", will fund research to identify and catalogue gene activity in all spinal cord cells.[10] The Translational Genomics Research Institute received a grant to develop a standard for the "processing and storage of solid tissues for single-cell RNA sequencing", compared to the typical practice of relying on the average of sequencing multiple cells.[12] Project home pages are available at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's website.[13]

The program is also backed by European Union, the National Institutes of Health in the United States, and the Manton Foundation.[9]

## Data

[edit]

In April 2018, the first data set from the project was released, representing 530,000 immune system cells collected from bone marrow and cord blood.[11]

A research program at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics published an atlas of the cells of the liver, using single-cell RNA sequencing on 10,000 normal cells obtained from nine donors.[14]

The Tabula Sapiens data was published on a dedicated website.[15]

## See also

[edit]

* List of distinct cell types in the adult human body
* ENCODE \- Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE)
* Human Genome Project
* Human Protein Atlas
* Human Biomolecular Atlas Program

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ Regev et al. 2018.
2. ^ Preidt 2016.
3. ^ a b c Yup 2017.
4. ^ Sample 2016.
5. ^ Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute 2016.
6. ^ Nowogrodzki 2017.
7. ^ "A 'Wikipedia for cells': researchers get an updated look at the Human Cell Atlas, and it's remarkable". Nature (Editorial). 635 (8039): 523–524\. 2024-11-20. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-03754-y. PMID 39567795.
8. ^ Regev, p. 4.
9. ^ a b Apple 2018.
10. ^ a b c Silva 2017.
11. ^ a b Daley 2018.
12. ^ a b AZ Big Media 2017.
13. ^ from https://www.czbiohub.org/tabula-projects/
14. ^ Aizarani et al. 2019.
15. ^ The Tabula Sapiens Consortium 2022.

## References

[edit]

* Aizarani, Nadim; Saviano, Antonio; Sagar, Laurent Mailly; Durand, Sarah; Herman, Josip S.; Pessaux, Patrick; Baumert, Thomas F.; Grün, Dominic (10 July 2019). "A human liver cell atlas reveals heterogeneity and epithelial progenitors". Nature. 572 (7768): 199–204\. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1373-2. PMC 6687507. PMID 31292543.
* Apple, Sam (22 August 2018). "The cartographer of cells". MIT Technology Review (published September 2018).
* Daley, Jason (19 April 2018). "Human Cell Atlas releases first major data set". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
* Farivar, Cyrus (30 September 2017). "To better grok how all 37 trillion human cells work, we need new tools". Ars Technica. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
* The Tabula Sapiens Consortium; et al. (May 2022). "The Tabula Sapiens: A multiple-organ, single-cell transcriptomic atlas of humans". Science. 376 (6594): eabl4896. doi:10.1126/science.abl4896. PMC 9812260. PMID 35549404. S2CID 248748505.
* Nowogrodzki, Anna (5 July 2017). "How to build a human cell atlas". Nature. 547 (7661): 24–26\. Bibcode:2017Natur.547...24N. doi:10.1038/547024a. PMID 28682347. S2CID 211067156.
* Preidt, Robert (17 October 2016). "Scientists plan to map every cell in the human body". CBS News. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
* Regev, Aviv. "The Human Cell Atlas" (PDF). Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 April 2021. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
* Regev, Aviv; et al. (Human Cell Atlas Organizing Committee) (2018). "The Human Cell Atlas White Paper". arXiv:1810.05192 [q-bio.TO].
* Sample, Ian (14 October 2016). "Human Cell Atlas project aims to map the human body's 35 trillion cells". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
* Silva, Catarina (20 October 2017). "Columbia researchers receive funding from Facebook founder to create atlas of spinal cord cells". ALS News Today. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
* Yup, Sang (26 June 2017). "Human Cell Atlas Opens a New Window to Health and Disease". Scientific American. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
* "TGen develops processing procedures for 'single-cell' sequencing". AZ Big Media. 19 October 2017. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
* "International Human Cell Atlas Initiative" (Press release). Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. 14 October 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2017.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Rozenblatt-Rosen, O.; Stubbington, M.J.T.; Regev, A.; Teichmann, S.A. (18 October 2017). "The Human Cell Atlas: from vision to reality". Nature. 550 (7677): 451–453\. Bibcode:2017Natur.550..451R. doi:10.1038/550451a. PMID 29072289. S2CID 205095818.

## External links

[edit]

* Official website
* Regev A, Teichmann SA, Lander ES, Amit I, Benoist C, Birney E, et al. (Human Cell Atlas Meeting Participants) (8 May 2017). "The Human Cell Atlas". bioRxiv 10.1101/121202.
* Ledford, Heidi (23 February 2017). "The race to map the human body — one cell at a time". Nature. 542 (7642): 404–405\. Bibcode:2017Natur.542..404L. doi:10.1038/nature.2017.21508. PMID 28230136.
* Cepelewicz, Jordana (12 July 2017). "Cell Atlases Reveal Biology's Frontiers". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
* "Human Cell Atlas data platform kicks off with support from CZI" (Press release). Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. 1 June 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
* Regev, Aviv (June 2017). "Creating a census of human cells". Nautilus. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
* Yong, Ed (14 October 2016). "A Google Maps for the human body". The Atlantic. Retrieved 4 October 2017.