Identification of a human cDC2 homeostatic maturation program by scRNA-seq

To explore the homeostatic maturation program of human cDCs, we exploited the nature of the spleen where DC maturation leads to migration from the red pulp and marginal zone to the white pulp of the spleen. Therefore, all steps of DC maturation are present and can be studied in the same organ. We first used single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) to profile lineage- (lin-) CD11c+ HLA-DR+ cells from spleens of 3 healthy human donors and identified a homeostatic maturation of the cDC2 subtype with 3 stages (cDC2, DC2pre-hm, DC2hm). Overall design: Single-cell transcriptomics of lineage- (lin-) CD11c+ HLA-DR+ cells from spleens of 3 healthy donors were obtained using MACS and FACS. 10 × Chromium single-cell libraries were prepared according to the manufacturer's instructions. Sequencing was performed using Illumina NovaSeq 6000.