AI helps create a new cell map of the lung, a valuable resource for research

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Combining data from almost 40 studies, a scientific team has achieved create the single cell atlas of the entire human lungthat reveals unusual cell types and serves to advance understanding of disease pulmonary.

According to those responsible, it is the largest and most complete cellular map of this organ and it will be a valuable resource for lung researchers and to identify new therapeutic targets. Details of this collection, for which machine learning has been used, are published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Behind the «Atlas of Human Lung Cells», which shows the KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HEALTH AND DISEASEthey are – among others – researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom, the Helmholtz Institute for Computational Biology in Germany and the University Medical Center of Groningen.

Lung research has been benefited from recent single cell studies that show which genes are active in each cell. Despite this, this has been limited by the number of samples and individuals included per study.

To better understand healthy lungs and determine what is wrong with the diseaseA complete atlas with great cell diversity has been needed, but it has been difficult to achieve, says a statement from the Wellcome Trust Sanger.

data pooling

The researchers have now achieved coCombine 49 lung data sets from almost 40 different studiesin a single integrated atlas, using advanced machine learning.

This atlas, which groups and integrates data from the major lung single cell RNA sequencing studies, it encompasses more than 2.4 million cells from 486 individuals and offers new insights into lung biology not previously possible.

According to Malte Luecken, lead author of the article, «a complete atlas of organs It requires many data sets to capture the diversity between cells and individuals, but combining different data sets is a huge challenge.»

Fabian Theis, also an author, adds that this atlas includes data from more than 100 people healthy cells and reveal how individuals’ cells vary with age, sex, and smoking history.

«The large number of cells and individuals involved now allow us to see unusual cell types and identify new undescribed cell states previously».

indicators

Although the core of the atlas is made up of data from healthy lungsdata sets were also taken from more than ten lung diseasesthat were projected onto data from healthy lungs to understand disease states.

The team discovered that different lung diseases shared common immune cell statesincluding the finding that a subset of macrophages (a type of immune cell) shared similar gene activity in lung fibrosis, cancer and covid-19.

The shared states indicate that these cells may play a similar role in scar formation in the lung in the three diseases and determinants of possible therapeutic targets.

new Vision

In the opinion of Martijn Nawijn, from the hospital in Groningen (the Netherlands), this discovery of shared cells is «really exciting» and reveals a way totally different from seeing lung diseasesopening possibilities for new treatment targets and the development of treatment response biomarkers.

«Our findings also suggest that therapies that work for one disease may help alleviate others«, it states.

One of the difficulties has been to unify the names of the cells. The atlas is a first step towards a consensual annotation of the human lung, which will help unify research in this field, concludes Lisa Sikkema.

The map, open to the research community, is part of the global initiative Human Cell Atlas, which aims to map all cell types in the human body and that it was promoted by researchers from the Wellcome Sanger and the Broad Institute (USA).

On the other hand, Cancer Cell magazine publishes another cancer studiesthat discovers a new cause coming from within us.

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Researchers at Flinders University in Australia have established a connection between the Cancer risk and the functions of circular RNAsa recently discovered family of genetic fragments present in cells.

Certain circular RNAs present in many of us can attach to the DNA of cells and change in the dna that give rise to cancer, a finding that those responsible call «revolutionary» and that opens up a whole new field of medical and molecular biology research.

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