Abstract
The Human Reference Atlas (HRA) aims to map all of the cells of the human body to advance biomedical research and clinical practice. This Perspective presents collaborative work by members of 16 international consortia on two essential and interlinked parts of the HRA: (1) three-dimensional representations of anatomy that are linked to (2) tables that name and interlink major anatomical structures, cell types, plus biomarkers (ASCT+B). We discuss four examples that demonstrate the practical utility of the HRA.
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Acknowledgements
We thank B. B. Lake from University of California, San Diego, for assistance with annotations and analysing the single-nucleus RNA-seq HUBMAP data for several of the markers in the kidney ASCT+B tables; B. Steck and R. Dull from the University of Michigan for assistance with the nomenclature and curation of kidney partonomy; S. Winfree, IUPUI, for discussions regarding the kidney ASCT+B table; and staff at the KPMP, especially the Tissue Interrogation Sites and the Controlled Cell Vocabulary working group, for guidance and development of the initial sets of ASCT+B kidney tables. We acknowledge L. Yao for segmenting and optimizing the mouse popliteal lymph node model from high-resolution microscopy data. The work was funded, in part, by NIH Awards OT2OD026671, U54DK120058, 1UH3CA246594, 1U54AI142766, 1UG3CA256960, 1UG3HL145609, U54HL145608, U54HL145611, UH3DK114933, DK110814 and DK107350; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Department of Health and Human Services under BCBB Support Services Contract HHSN316201300006W/HHSN27200002; the Intramural Research Program of the NIH at NIAID; and Helmsley Charitable Trust 2018PG-T1D071.
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In the past 3 years, S.A.T. has received remuneration for consulting and Scientific Advisory Board membership from Genentech, Roche, Biogen, GlaxoSmithKline, Foresite labs, Qiagen and Transition Bio and she is a co-founder and equity holder of Transition Bio. R.M. receives research funding from Bayer and Amgen and serves as a consultant for Myokardia/BMS and Third Pole; he is a co-founder of Patch Inc; he is a co-inventor for a patent no. PCT/US2O12/O22119 on pharmacologic BMP inhibitors (along with Mass General Brigham) for which he receives royalties from Keros Therapeutics, Inc.; he also receives royalties from UpToDate for scientific content authorship. The other authors declare no competing interests.
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Börner, K., Teichmann, S.A., Quardokus, E.M. et al. Anatomical structures, cell types and biomarkers of the Human Reference Atlas. Nat Cell Biol 23, 1117–1128 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-021-00788-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-021-00788-6
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