1. What is a cell type and how to define it?
- Author
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Zeng, Hongkui
- Subjects
- *
KNOWLEDGE base , *CELL physiology , *ROOT development - Abstract
Cell types are the basic functional units of an organism. Cell types exhibit diverse phenotypic properties at multiple levels, making them challenging to define, categorize, and understand. This review provides an overview of the basic principles of cell types rooted in evolution and development and discusses approaches to characterize and classify cell types and investigate how they contribute to the organism's function, using the mammalian brain as a primary example. I propose a roadmap toward a conceptual framework and knowledge base of cell types that will enable a deeper understanding of the dynamic changes of cellular function under healthy and diseased conditions. In this review, Zeng discusses how insights learned from the mammalian brain have begun to reveal generalizable organizing principles of cell types and proposes a roadmap based on these principles for taking a multilevel, iterative approach to define cell types and for generating a knowledge base of cell types across lifespan, species, and the brain and body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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