Using single‐cell multi‐omics screening of human fetal pancreas to identify novel players in human beta cell development

Abstract

Islet transplantation from organ donors can considerably improve glucose homeostasis and well‐being in individuals with type 1 diabetes, where the beta cells are destroyed by the autoimmune attack, but there are insufficient donor islets to make this a widespread therapy. Strategies are therefore being developed to generate unlimited amounts of insulin‐producing beta cells from pluripotent stem cells, with the aim that they will be transplanted to treat diabetes. Whilst much progress has been made in recent years in the directed differentiation of pluripotent stem cells to beta‐like cells, essential gaps still exist in generating stem cell‐derived beta cells that are fully functional in vitro. This short review provides details of recent multi‐‘omics’ studies of the human fetal pancreas, which are revealing granular information on the various cell types in the developing pancreas. It is anticipated that this fine mapping of the pancreatic cells at single‐cell resolution will provide additional insights that can be utilised to reproducibly produce human beta cells in vitro that have the functional characteristics of beta cells within native human islets.

Single-cell multi-omics analysis reveals dysfunctional Wnt signaling of spermatogonia in non-obstructive azoospermia

“…Single-cell analysis sheds light on molecular data of a wide variety of diseases at an unprecedented resolution (10). Single-cell multi-omics analysis includes, but is not limited to, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), single-cell assay for transposaseaccessible chromatin sequencing (scATAC-seq), and spatial transcriptomics analysis.…”

Stellar science: Basic science has lift off!

“…Rory McCrimmon, 9 this year's Dorothy Hodgkin Lecture recipient, has written an engaging overview of his prize lecture in which he has provided mechanistic insights into recurrent hypoglycaemia in diabetes. We are confident that the articles in this special issue, which are a mixture of primary research, 1–5,7 and state of the art reviews, 6,8,9 are accessible to non‐specialists and will be enjoyed by a wide readership.…”

“…We have four stimulating articles from PhD students who were nominated for the Diabetes UK 2022 Basic Science Poster Award (Zekun Lyu, 1 Tanyel Ashik, 2 Lydia Daniels‐Gatward 3 and Claire Williams 4 ), all of whom clearly have much to offer in their respective fields. There are also two high‐quality articles from the Diabetes UK 2022 Early Career Investigator Award nominees (Beth Williams 5 and the prize winner Ed Olaniru 6 ) who both wrote compelling articles in their specialist areas. The most outstanding basic science diabetes researchers in the UK are awarded five‐year RD Lawrence Fellowships after competitive interview.…”