Table 1 |.
Publications registered with the HDCA
| Organ | Stage | Main highlights | Publications |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brain | First and second trimester | Specific brain regions studied, including prefrontal cortex and neocortex; tracing of developmental trajectories of cells; characterization of mechanisms that underlie neuron generation and circuit formation | Refs. 59,60,63 |
| Gut | First and second trimester, organoids | Profile of transcriptomes of cycling epithelial precursor cells; evaluation of the effect of mesenchymal cells on LGR5 stem cells; comparison of transcriptomes of ex vivo tissues and in vitro fetal organoids, and of transcriptome profiles from paediatric Crohn’s disease epithelium with matched healthy controls | Refs. 58,60,64,124 |
| Heart | First and second trimester | Identification of unique gene profiles that correspond to distinct anatomical regions in each developmental stage; integration of scRNA-seq and spatial data; generation of a web resource of the human developing heart | Refs. 57,60,62,119 |
| Liver and fetal haematopoiesis | First and second trimester | Identification of the repertoire of human blood and immune cells, and of differentiation trajectories from haematopoietic stem cells and multipotent progenitors; evaluation of the effect of tissue microenvironment on blood and immune-cell development | Refs. 54,60 |
| Kidney | First trimester | Identification of both known and unknown transcription factors associated with nephron development; characterization of myeloid and lymphoid populations present during fetal development | Refs. 54,60,61,65 |
| Placenta | First trimester | Characterization of cellular organization of the decidua and placenta; identification of perivascular and stromal cellular subsets; development of a repository of ligand– receptor complexes, and of a statistical tool to predict the cell-type specificity of cell–cell communication via receptor–ligand interactions | Ref. 56 |
| Thymus | First and second-trimester, paediatric | Identification of more than 50 cell states, novel subpopulations of thymic fibroblasts and epithelial cells, and a cellular network of the thymic niche for T cell development | Ref. 78 |
| Skin | First trimester | Identification of physiological erythropoiesis; enrichment of innate immune cells; co-option of developmental programs identified in adult inflammatory skin diseases | Refs. 54,114 |
| Multi-organ | First and second trimester | Integrated analyses of transcriptomes and chromatin accessibility from several fetal organs, including brain, heart, lung, gut, kidney, adrenal glands, stomach, pancreas, spleen, gonads, muscle, eye and skin | Refs. 60,85,118 |
There are 48 researchers from 13 countries currently registered with the HDCA. Developmental datasets are contributed to public repositories, including the HCA Data Coordination Portal. Further information on HCA publications is available at https://www.humancellatlas.org/publications.