Cell Type Populations for 3D Anatomical Structures of the Human Reference Atlas.

Area of Science:

• Human cell biology
• Anatomical sciences
• Computational biology

Background:

• The human body comprises trillions of cells across diverse types and organs.
• A comprehensive, quantitative map of cell type distribution in healthy human anatomy is lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a quantitative 3D reference map of human cell type populations across anatomical structures.
• To provide a foundational resource for understanding cellular organization and its relation to health and disease.

Main Methods:

• Utilized high-quality single-cell transcriptomics and proteomics datasets.
• Applied scalable and reproducible workflows for cell type annotation (CTann) using tools like Azimuth and CellTypist.
• Spatially registered 662 datasets across 17 organs to 230 locations.

Main Results:

• HRApop v1.0 quantifies cell type populations for 73 anatomical structures (112 sex-specific).
• Integrated data from 558 single-cell transcriptomics and 104 single-cell proteomics datasets, totaling over 27.6 million cells.
• Computed cell types and biomarker expressions for each structure.

Conclusions:

• HRApop provides an unprecedented reference for healthy human cellular composition.
• This resource facilitates research into cellular interactions, tissue-level disease mechanisms, and therapeutic strategies.
• Enables deeper understanding of human biology from a cellular population perspective.