新兴灵长类动物狐猴的分子细胞图谱，这一成果由斯坦福大学医学院Mark A. Krasnow课题组经过不懈努力而取得。2025年7月30日出版的《自然》发表了这项成果。

在这里，该课题组研究人员对基于液滴和基于平板的单细胞RNA测序进行了主题化，创建了Tabula Microcebthem，这是一个来自27个母狐猴器官的226000个细胞的转录组图谱，这些细胞来自它们的供体，具有临床和组织学特征。使用计算细胞克隆，整合和专家细胞注释，小组定义和生物组织超过750狐猴分子细胞类型及其完整的基因表达谱。这包括大多数经典人类细胞类型的同源物，包括干细胞和祖细胞，以及精子发生、造血和其他成人组织发育轨迹上的分化细胞。

课题组还描述了几十种以前未识别或稀疏特征的细胞类型。课题组在全球范围内比较了表达谱，以确定全身细胞类型的分子关系，并通过将狐猴的转录组与人类、小鼠和猕猴的转录组进行比较，探索灵长类动物细胞和基因表达的进化。这揭示了灵长类动物分化的细胞类型特异性模式，以及母狐猴提供了比母狐猴更好的人类模型的许多细胞类型和基因。该图谱为研究这种模式灵长类动物提供了细胞和分子基础，并为表征其他新兴模式生物建立了一般方法。

据了解，长尾狐猴是最小、繁殖最快的灵长类动物，也是数量最多的灵长类动物之一，它们正在成为灵长类生物、行为、健康和保护的典范生物。尽管人们对它们在马达加斯加的生态学和系统发育以及生理学有了很多了解，但对它们的细胞和分子生物学知之甚少。

附：英文原文

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

Author: 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, 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.

Issue&Volume: 2025-07-30

Abstract: 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.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09113-9

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09113-9