A protein-transcriptome atlas of haematopoiesis across the human life span

细胞是生物学的基本单位，因为我们所有的器官都是由细胞组成的，具有不同专门功能的细胞结合在一起提供整体功能。细胞的特化可能在血液系统中得到了最好的理解，例如，红细胞致力于在全身运送氧气，而无数的特化免疫细胞则帮助抵抗感染。更好地了解单个细胞的分子特征不仅对我们更好地了解人体如何正常运作至关重要，而且能够设计出更好的药物来逆转细胞的异常行为，这种异常行为导致许多疾病，包括血癌和免疫紊乱。最近的技术创新使得在同一时间以数千个细胞的规模非常全面地绘制单个细胞内所有基因的活动成为可能。我们建议利用该领域的最新方案之一来绘制信使RNA和蛋白质水平，从而获得对人类一生中超过55万个个体血液和免疫细胞的分子组成的特别详细的了解。通过与更广泛的人类细胞图谱计划的整合，我们的数据集将提供一个重要的参考，这将作为未来研究的平台，旨在揭示在包括血癌和免疫疾病在内的广泛疾病中导致血细胞行为不当的分子改变。

The cell represents a fundamental unit of biology, as all of our organs are composed of cells, where cells with different specialized functions combine to provide overall functionality. Specialization of cells is perhaps best understood in the blood system, where red blood cells for example are dedicated to carrying oxygen round the body, while a myriad of specialized immune cells help to fight infections. A better understanding of the molecular features that characterize individual cells is not only essential for us to gain a better understanding of how the human body functions normally, but also to be able to design better drugs that can reverse the abnormal behaviour of cells, which causes many diseases including blood cancers and immune disorders.Recent technological innovations have made it possible to map very comprehensively the activity of all genes within single cells, at a scale of thousands of cells at the same time. We propose to utilize one of the latest protocols in this field to map both messenger RNA as well as protein levels, and thus obtain especially detailed insights into the molecular make up of over 550,000 individual blood and immune cells across the human lifespan. Through integration with the wider Human Cell Atlas Initiative, our datasets will deliver an important reference, that will serve as a platform for future studies aiming to reveal the molecular alterations that cause the misbehaviour of blood cells in a broad range of disorders including blood cancers and immune diseases.