Cellular Heterogeneity of the Heart

Abstract

Recent advances in technology such as the introduction of high throughput multidimensional tools like single cell sequencing help to characterize the cellular composition of the human heart. The diversity of cell types that has been uncovered by such approaches is by far greater than ever expected before. Accurate identification of the cellular variety and dynamics will not only facilitate a much deeper understanding of cardiac physiology but also provide important insights into mechanisms underlying its pathological transformation. Distinct cellular patterns of cardiac cell clusters may allow differentiation between a healthy heart and a sick heart while potentially predicting future disease at much earlier stages than currently possible. These advances have already extensively improved and will ultimately revolutionize our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying cardiovascular disease as such. In this review, we will provide an overview of the cells present in the human and rodent heart as well as genes that may be used for their identification.

Keywords: cell type; genes; heart; heterogeneity; single cell RNA sequencing.

FIGURE 1

Cellular composition and markers of the human and murine heart. Cellular composition and most consistently identified markers that may be used for identification and separation of major cellular lineages in adult human and murine hearts. A more comprehensive list of additional marker genes, including fetal human hearts, is provided in Supplementary Tables 1–3.