Techniques converge to map the developing human heart at single-cell level

Phansalkar, Ragini; Red-Horse, Kristy

doi:10.1038/d41586-020-00151-z

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27 January 2020

Techniques converge to map the developing human heart at single-cell level

Three methods for gene-expression profiling have now been combined to produce spatially defined single-cell maps of developing human organs from limited sample material, overcoming a major hurdle in studying human development.

Ragini Phansalkar ⁰ &
Kristy Red-Horse ¹

Ragini Phansalkar
1. Ragini Phansalkar is in the Department of Genetics, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
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Kristy Red-Horse
1. Kristy Red-Horse is in the Department of Biology, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
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People are often curious about how their bodies work. So, it is no surprise that single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) — which has the power to map all the cell types in the human body¹^–³ — has drawn great interest from scientists and funding agencies alike. But a major limitation of scRNA-seq is that it cannot provide information about where in the original tissue each cell was located. Writing in Cell, Asp et al.⁴ demonstrate a way of overcoming this hurdle by combining scRNA-seq with other sequencing methods that retain location information. They use this approach to create a spatially defined cell atlas of the developing human heart.

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Nature 577, 629-630 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00151-z

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