Single-cell RNA sequencing of human kidney

A comprehensive cellular anatomy of normal human kidney is crucial to address the cellular origins of renal disease and renal cancer. Some kidney diseases may be cell type-specific, especially renal tubular cells. To investigate the classification and transcriptomic information of human kidney, we performed a method to obtain single-cell suspension of kidney rapidly, and conducted single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). We present scRNA-seq data of 23,366 high quality cells from human kidneys of 3 donors. In this dataset, we show 10 clusters of normal human renal cells. Due to the high quality of single cell transcriptomic information, proximal tubule (PT) cells were classified into 3 subtypes and collecting ducts cells into 2 subtypes. Collectively, our data will provide a reliable reference for the studies of renal cell biology and kidney diseases.

完整解析正常人体肾脏的细胞解剖结构，对于阐明肾脏疾病与肾癌的细胞起源具有关键意义。部分肾脏疾病具有细胞类型特异性，尤以肾小管细胞为甚。为探究人体肾脏的细胞分类与转录组信息，我们建立了快速获取肾脏单细胞悬液的实验方法，并完成了单细胞RNA测序（single-cell RNA sequencing, scRNA-seq）。本研究从3名供者的肾脏组织中，共计获取23366个高质量单细胞的scRNA-seq数据。本数据集中共鉴定出10类正常人体肾脏细胞。得益于高质量的单细胞转录组数据，我们将近端小管（proximal tubule, PT）细胞划分为3个亚型，集合管细胞划分为2个亚型。综上，本数据集将为肾脏细胞生物学及肾脏疾病相关研究提供可靠的参考依据。