美国斯坦福大学Stephen R. Quake、Carlos Simon等研究人员，合作绘制出月经周期中人类子宫内膜的单细胞转录组图谱。2020年9月14日，《自然—医学》在线发表了这一成果。

Title: Single-cell transcriptomic atlas of the human endometrium during the menstrual cycle

Author: Wanxin Wang, Felipe Vilella, Pilar Alama, Inmaculada Moreno, Marco Mignardi, Alina Isakova, Wenying Pan, Carlos Simon, Stephen R. Quake

Issue&Volume: 2020-09-14

Abstract: In a human menstrual cycle the endometrium undergoes remodeling, shedding and regeneration, all of which are driven by substantial gene expression changes in the underlying cellular hierarchy. Despite its importance in human fertility and regenerative biology, our understanding of this unique type of tissue homeostasis remains rudimentary. We characterized the transcriptomic transformation of human endometrium at single-cell resolution across the menstrual cycle, resolving cellular heterogeneity in multiple dimensions. We profiled the behavior of seven endometrial cell types, including a previously uncharacterized ciliated cell type, during four major phases of endometrial transformation, and found characteristic signatures for each cell type and phase. We discovered that the human window of implantation opens with an abrupt and discontinuous transcriptomic activation in the epithelia, accompanied with a widespread decidualization feature in the stromal fibroblasts. Our study provides a high-resolution molecular and cellular characterization of human endometrial transformation across the menstrual cycle, providing insights into this essential physiological process. Single-cell transcriptomics analysis of endometrium samples from healthy women collected across the menstrual cycle provides insights into the cellular and molecular changes surrounding and during the implantation window in the absence of pregnancy.

DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-1040-z

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1040-z