RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A limited set of transcriptional programs define major cell types JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 857169 DO 10.1101/857169 A1 Alessandra Breschi A1 Manuel Muñoz-Aguirre A1 Valentin Wucher A1 Carrie A. Davis A1 Diego Garrido-Martín A1 Sarah Djebali A1 Jesse Gillis A1 Dmitri D. Pervouchine A1 Anna Vlasova A1 Alexander Dobin A1 Chris Zaleski A1 Jorg Drenkow A1 Cassidy Danyko A1 Alexandra Scavelli A1 Ferran Reverter A1 Michael P. Snyder A1 Thomas R. Gingeras A1 Roderic Guigó YR 2020 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/03/11/857169.abstract AB We have produced RNA sequencing data for a number of primary cells from different locations in the human body. The clustering of these primary cells reveals that most cells in the human body share a few broad transcriptional programs, which define five major cell types: epithelial, endothelial, mesenchymal, neural and blood cells. These act as basic components of many tissues and organs. Based on gene expression, these cell types redefine the basic histological types by which tissues have been traditionally classified. We identified genes whose expression is specific to these cell types, and from these genes, we estimated the contribution of the major cell types to the composition of human tissues. We found this cellular composition to be a characteristic signature of tissues, and to reflect tissue morphological heterogeneity and histology. We identified changes in cellular composition in different tissues associated with age and sex and found that departures from the normal cellular composition correlate with histological phenotypes associated to disease.One Sentence Summary A few broad transcriptional programs define the major cell types underlying the histology of human tissues and organs.