Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Apr 8;49(1):10-29.
doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2019.03.001. Epub 2019 Mar 28.

The Pediatric Cell Atlas: Defining the Growth Phase of Human Development at Single-Cell Resolution

Deanne M Taylor  1 Bruce J Aronow  2 Kai Tan  3 Kathrin Bernt  4 Nathan Salomonis  5 Casey S Greene  6 Alina Frolova  7 Sarah E Henrickson  8 Andrew Wells  9 Liming Pei  10 Jyoti K Jaiswal  11 Jeffrey Whitsett  12 Kathryn E Hamilton  13 Sonya A MacParland  14 Judith Kelsen  13 Robert O Heuckeroth  15 S Steven Potter  16 Laura A Vella  17 Natalie A Terry  13 Louis R Ghanem  13 Benjamin C Kennedy  18 Ingo Helbig  19 Kathleen E Sullivan  8 Leslie Castelo-Soccio  20 Arnold Kreigstein  21 Florian Herse  22 Martijn C Nawijn  23 Gerard H Koppelman  24 Melissa Haendel  25 Nomi L Harris  26 Jo Lynne Rokita  27 Yuanchao Zhang  28 Aviv Regev  29 Orit Rozenblatt-Rosen  30 Jennifer E Rood  30 Timothy L Tickle  31 Roser Vento-Tormo  32 Saif Alimohamed  5 Monkol Lek  33 Jessica C Mar  34 Kathleen M Loomes  13 David M Barrett  4 Prech Uapinyoying  35 Alan H Beggs  36 Pankaj B Agrawal  37 Yi-Wen Chen  11 Amanda B Muir  13 Lana X Garmire  38 Scott B Snapper  39 Javad Nazarian  11 Steven H Seeholzer  40 Hossein Fazelinia  41 Larry N Singh  42 Robert B Faryabi  43 Pichai Raman  27 Noor Dawany  27 Hongbo Michael Xie  27 Batsal Devkota  27 Sharon J Diskin  4 Stewart A Anderson  44 Eric F Rappaport  45 William Peranteau  46 Kathryn A Wikenheiser-Brokamp  47 Sarah Teichmann  48 Douglas Wallace  49 Tao Peng  50 Yang-Yang Ding  4 Man S Kim  27 Yi Xing  51 Sek Won Kong  52 Carsten G Bönnemann  53 Kenneth D Mandl  52 Peter S White  5
Affiliations
Review

The Pediatric Cell Atlas: Defining the Growth Phase of Human Development at Single-Cell Resolution

Deanne M Taylor et al. Dev Cell. .

Abstract

Single-cell gene expression analyses of mammalian tissues have uncovered profound stage-specific molecular regulatory phenomena that have changed the understanding of unique cell types and signaling pathways critical for lineage determination, morphogenesis, and growth. We discuss here the case for a Pediatric Cell Atlas as part of the Human Cell Atlas consortium to provide single-cell profiles and spatial characterization of gene expression across human tissues and organs. Such data will complement adult and developmentally focused HCA projects to provide a rich cytogenomic framework for understanding not only pediatric health and disease but also environmental and genetic impacts across the human lifespan.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Compiling a Pediatric Single-Cell Atlas.
A pediatric single-cell atlas can consist of multi-omics data from hundreds to many thousands of cells isolated from multiple tissues from normally developing and disease-affected individuals. Single cells can be grouped into cell types that have unique molecular profiles representing primary programs for that cell type as well as sub-state-specific additional programming. The utility of a single-cell atlas is the possibility to map molecular signatures driving developmental, physiological, and pathological processes. Thus, single cell-based signatures can reveal the roles and responses of multiple cell lineages that dictate a given organ’s and/or tissue’s collective biology.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Potential Applications for a PCA.
The PCA has the potential to map and illuminate the cellular basis of normal and abnormal development, cell- and organ-level differentiation, and compensatory and causal processes of disease. (A) Healthy children are frequently in a global state of growth activation compared to adults through the effects of growth factors, leading to profound impacts on gene expression and cell and tissue interactions, especially in the context of perturbations due to genetics, acquired somatic mutations, environment, infectious disease, and pharmacologics. (B) All of the outputs of a pediatric single-cell atlas are interrelated to provide a holistic outlook on how cells and tissues interact, differentiate, and function with each other in times of normal versus disease states
Figure 3.
Figure 3.. Example of Data Reuse When Datasets Are Analyzed from the Perspective of Building the PCA.
Reanalysis of the Human Brain Single-Cell Survey Study (Darmanis et al., 2015; NIH GEO GSE84465) yields a series of gene expression modules that exhibit the greatest differential expression between cell classes, subclasses, and stages. The heatmap shows the top 200 differentially expressed genes per each cell type, subtype, and stage (log2(TPM+1)) and highlights the the major signatures of fetal and postnatal neurons while contrasting the lack of representation of mature differentiated neuron subtypes (cells on the right side of heatmap; signature modules on the lower half of heatmap) in fetal neurons (middle portion of the heatmap). Very few of the top stage-specific neuronal genes overlap (fetal neurons versus postnatal neurons) despite enrichment of similar functions with completely different genes comprising those categories. Moreover, there are also subtle, albeit fundamental, shifts in the biological functions of the developmental stage gene modules. An interactive view of this data can be seen at http://toppcell.cchmc.org/.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.. Enrichment Analysis of the Major Signature Overexpressed in Fetal Neurons versus Those from Postnatal and Adult Human Brain.
Modular analysis of data shown in Figure 3 yields functional associations (rectangles) shared by the top 200 contrasting genes (hexagons) and their links to Gene Ontology, mouse gene knockout phenotype, or human OMIM gene-associated phenotype terms (phenotype-associated genes [yellow hexagons] which are connected by separately colored edges per phenotype group. This example highlights the necessity of profiling fetal and pediatric cells and genes, which have similar functions and processes compared to their adult counterparts but impact development, function, and physiology at different stages of development through different gene and regulatory programs. It also indicates that critical genetic associations can only be fully appreciated in the context of fetal stage neurons rather than their mature counterparts. Network analysis carried out using the “top 200 fetal quiescent neuron” gene-expression signature shown in Figure 3 as analyzed using the http://toppcluster.cchmc.org/ multiple-annotations biological network analysis functions to generate XGMML output that was then clustered in Cytoscape (Shannon et al., 2003).

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Aevermann BD, Novotny M, Bakken T, Miller JA, Diehl AD, Osumi-Sutherland D, Lasken RS, Lein ES, and Scheuermann RH (2018). Cell type discovery using single-cell transcriptomics: implications for ontological representation. Hum Mol Genet 27, R40–R47. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alcantara D, Timms AE, Gripp K, Baker L, Park K, Collins S, Cheng C, Stewart F, Mehta SG, Saggar A, et al. (2017). Mutations of AKT3 are associated with a wide spectrum of developmental disorders including extreme megalencephaly. Brain 140, 2610–2622. - PMC - PubMed
    1. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Task Force on Hypertension in Pregnancy (2013). Hypertension in pregnancy. Report of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Task Force on Hypertension in Pregnancy; pp. 1122–1131. - PubMed
    1. Amodio M, Srinivasan K, van Dijk D, Mohsen H, Yim K, Muhle R, Moon KR, Kaech S, Sowell R, Montgomery R, et al. (2017). Exploring Single-Cell Data with Multitasking Deep Neural Networks. bioRxiv 237065.
    1. Andropoulos DB (2018). Effect of Anesthesia on the Developing Brain: Infant and Fetus. Fetal Diagn Ther 43, 1–11. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms