Somatic Cell Heterogeneity

Cell Heterogeneity of Normal Human Tissues

Recent research has demonstrated the transcriptional heterogeneity of cells in normal tissue as well as the presence of somatic genetic abnormalities in both healthy and sick tissues. Human hematopoietic and skin cells both had clonal proliferation and cancer driver gene alterations. In various single-cell studies of aging or cancer, somatic genetic diversity was found in paracancerous cells that were not common to the cancer lineages, including mosaic copy number variations (CNVs) in human neurons. This underlined the need of researching cellular heterogeneity and looking at how it affects diseases and aging development. The prevalence and characteristics of premalignant neoplasm in humans have the potential to aid in our comprehension of the molecular mechanisms behind tumorigenesis and the detection of malignant trans-forming processes, both of which are essential for the prevention and management of cancer. The ability to recreate the developmental history of organs based on genetic variation lineage has also been shown by single-cell genomics; this will help scientists better comprehend the trajectory of cell lineages throughout the entire process of multicellular animal development.

Somatic Cell Heterogeneity

Adult-derived cells that have the capacity to undergo differentiation and generate many lineages over extended periods of time as well as the capacity to simultaneously self-renew are known as somatic stem cells. Somatic stem cells have been classified as having these two distinctive qualities. In the past, researchers believed that the pool of stem cells presenting in a particular tissue was always the same size and that all of the stem cells contained inside the pool had the same potential for differentiation and self-renewal. On the other hand, recent data that were generated using new technologies have indicated that, in many somatic tissues, the stem cell system is surprisingly heterogeneous, comprising different types of stem cells, such as those from hematopoietic, skin, and intestinal epithelium. These types of stem cells can be found in a variety of somatic tissues.

References

1. Mora, F.V.; et al. Single-cell transcriptomics in cancer immunobiology: the future of precision oncology. Frontiers in Immunology. 2018, 9: 2582.
2. Verovskaya, E.V.; Haan, G.D. The power of diversity: hematopoietic stem cell heterogeneity and its clinical relevance. Hematopoietic Stem Cells. 2011, 5: 132-139.
3. Goodell, M.A.; et al. Somatic stem cell heterogeneity: diversity in the blood, skin and intestinal stem cell compartments. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology. 2015, 16(5): 299-309.