Single cell transcriptomic and spatial landscapes of the developing human pancreas - spatial transcriptomics

The progress made in directed differentiation of stem cells has shown that understanding human pancreas development can provide cues for generating unlimited amounts of insulin-producing beta cells for transplantation therapy in diabetes. However, current differentiation protocols have not been successful in reproducibly generating functional human beta cells in vitro, partly due to incomplete understanding of human pancreas development. Here, we present detailed transcriptomic analysis of the various cell types of the developing human pancreas, including their spatial gene patterns. We integrated single cell RNA sequencing with spatial transcriptomics at multiple developmental timepoints and revealed distinct temporal-spatial gene cascades in the developing human pancreas. Overall design: Human fetal pancreases at 12, 15, 18 and 20 post-conception weeks were subject to 10x Visium spatial transcriptomics