A molecular cell atlas of mouse lemur, an emerging model primate

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ezran, Camille; Liu, Shixuan; Chang, Stephen; Ming, Jingsi; Botvinnik, Olga; Penland, Lolita; Tarashansky, Alexander; de Morree, Antoine; Travaglini, Kyle J.; Zhao, Jia; Wang, Gefei; Hasegawa, Kazuteru; Sin, Hosu; Sit, Rene; Okamoto, Jennifer; Sinha, Rahul; Zhang, Yue; Karanewsky, Caitlin J.; Pendleton, Jozeph L.; Morri, Maurizio; Perret, Martine; Aujard, Fabienne; Stryer, Lubert; Artandi, Steven; Fuller, Margaret T.; Weissman, Irving L.; Rando, Thomas A.; Ferrell Jr, James E.; Wang, Bo; De Vlaminck, Iwijn; Yang, Can; Casey, Kerriann M.; Albertelli, Megan A.; Pisco, Angela Oliveira; Karkanias, Jim; Neff, Norma; Wu, Angela Ruohao; Quake, Stephen R.; Krasnow, Mark A.
• 署名单位: Stanford University; Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Stanford University; Stanford University; Stanford University; East China Normal University; East China Normal University; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI); Stanford University; Stanford University; Aarhus University; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Stanford University; Stanford Cancer Institute; Stanford University; Stanford University; Stanford University; Stanford University; Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); CNRS - Institute of Ecology & Environment (INEE); Stanford University; Stanford University; Cornell University; Stanford University; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Stanford University
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-3285
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09113-9
• 发表日期: 2025-08-07
• 关键词: reveals; mice

摘要

Mouse lemurs are the smallest and fastest reproducing primates, as well as one of the most abundant, and they are emerging as a model organism for primate biology, behaviour, health and conservation. Although much has been learnt about their ecology and phylogeny in Madagascar and their physiology, little is known about their cellular and molecular biology. Here we used droplet-based and plate-based single-cell RNA sequencing to create Tabula Microcebus, a transcriptomic atlas of 226,000 cells from 27 mouse lemur organs opportunistically obtained from four donors clinically and histologically characterized. Using computational cell clustering, integration and expert cell annotation, we define and biologically organize more than 750 lemur molecular cell types and their full gene expression profiles. This includes cognates of most classical human cell types, including stem and progenitor cells, and differentiating cells along the developmental trajectories of spermatogenesis, haematopoiesis and other adult tissues. We also describe dozens of previously unidentified or sparsely characterized cell types. We globally compare expression profiles to define the molecular relationships of cell types across the body, and explore primate cell and gene expression evolution by comparing lemur transcriptomes to those of human, mouse and macaque. This reveals cell-type-specific patterns of primate specialization and many cell types and genes for which the mouse lemur provides a better human model than mouse1. The atlas provides a cellular and molecular foundation for studying this model primate and establishes a general approach for characterizing other emerging model organisms.