Single-Cell RNA Sequencing of the Adult Mouse Kidney: From Molecular Cataloging of Cell Types to Disease-Associated Predictions

Single-cell transcriptomic analyses have emerged as a powerful tool in dissecting cell diversity and function within complex biological systems.1 As high-throughput approaches have evolved,2-4 the field has moved toward large data sets comprising thousands of cells or nuclei.5-8 In a recent report in Science from the Suszták laboratory, Park et al9 describe single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) analyses of 57,979 cells from the kidneys of 7 adult male mice. Analyses of these data by computational approaches and follow-up studies in vivo led the authors to 3 key conclusions: (1) the work constitutes a comprehensive cell atlas for the mouse kidney and identifies novel cell types; (2) kidney disease–associated genes highlight specific cell types, thus pinpointing the cellular origin of each disease; and (3) in the collecting system, there is a rare cell type that shares features of both intercalated (ICs) and principal cells (PCs), which can transition into either cell type depending on activity of the Notch cell-signaling pathway.

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