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Precision Cardiology to Benefit from New Atlas of Cells of the Adult Human Heart

Reporters: Justin D. Pearlman, MD, PhD, FACC and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

The Voice of Dr. Pearlman on potential clinical implications of the New Atlas:

Published on 9/24/2020 in Nature

Litviňuková, M., Talavera-López, C., Maatz, H. et al. Cells of the adult human heart. Nature (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2797-4

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Advanced insights into disease mechanisms and therapeutic strategies require deeper understanding of the healthy heart’s molecular processes. Knowledge of the full repertoire of cardiac cells and their gene expression profiles is a fundamental first step in this endeavor. Here, using state-of-the-art analyses of large-scale single-cell and nuclei transcriptomes, we characterise six anatomical adult heart regions. Our results highlight the cellular heterogeneity of cardiomyocytes, pericytes, and fibroblasts, revealing distinct atrial and ventricular subsets with diverse developmental origins and specialized properties. We define the complexity of the cardiac vasculature and its changes along the arterio-venous axis. In the immune compartment we identify cardiac resident macrophages with inflammatory and protective transcriptional signatures. Further, inference of cell-cell interactions highlight different macrophage-fibroblast-cardiomyocyte networks between atria and ventricles that are distinct from skeletal muscle. Our human cardiac cell atlas improves our understanding of the human heart and provides a healthy reference for future studies.

Author information

Author notes

1. These authors contributed equally: Monika Litviňuková, Carlos Talavera-López, Henrike Maatz, Daniel Reichart
2. These authors jointly supervised this work: J. G. Seidman, Christine E. Seidman, Michela Noseda, Norbert Hubner, Sarah A. Teichmann

Affiliations

1. Cellular Genetics Programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, United Kingdom

   Monika Litviňuková, Carlos Talavera-López, Krzysztof Polanski, Kenny Roberts, Liz Tuck, Eirini S. Fasouli, Hongbo Zhang, Omer Bayraktar & Sarah A. Teichmann

2. Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), Berlin, Germany

   Monika Litviňuková, Henrike Maatz, Catherine L. Worth, Eric L. Lindberg, Masatoshi Kanda, Giannino Patone & Norbert Hubner

3. EMBL – EBI, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, United Kingdom

   Carlos Talavera-López

4. Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States

   Daniel Reichart, Emily R. Nadelmann, Daniel M. DeLaughter, Hiroko Wakimoto, Joshua M. Gorham, J. G. Seidman & Christine E. Seidman

5. Dept Physics/Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, JJ Thompson Ave, Cambridge, CB3 0EH, United Kingdom

   Sarah A. Teichmann

6. Department of Cardiology, University Heart & Vascular Center, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

   Daniel Reichart

7. National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

   Michael Lee, Sara Samari, Joseph J. Boyle & Michela Noseda

8. British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence and Centre of Regenerative Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

   Michela Noseda

9. Department of Surgery, University of Cambridge, NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Centre, and Cambridge Biorepository for Translational Medicine, Cambridge, United Kingdom

   Krishnaa T. Mahbubani & Kourosh Saeb-Parsy

10. Charité-Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany

    Norbert Hubner

11. Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), Berlin, Germany

    Norbert Hubner

12. DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), Partner Site Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Barbara McDonough & Norbert Hubner

13. Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, United States

    Barbara McDonough & Christine E. Seidman

14. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD, United States

    Christine E. Seidman

15. Institute of Computational Biology (ICB), HMGU, Neuherberg, Germany

    Matthias Heinig

16. Department of Informatics, Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), Munich, Germany

    Matthias Heinig

17. Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

    Hao Zhang, Anissa Viveiros & Gavin Y. Oudit

18. Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

    Hao Zhang, Anissa Viveiros & Gavin Y. Oudit

19. Department of Histology and Embryology of Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun-Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Hongbo Zhang

20. Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Sapporo Medical University, Sapporo, Japan

    Masatoshi Kanda

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to J. G. Seidman or Christine E. Seidman or Michela Noseda or Norbert Hubner or Sarah A. Teichmann.