An international collaboration describes a mind dazzling analysis of over a million single cells covering all major tissues of the primate macaque.

The macaque (Macaca fascicularis) is important as model for human biology due to its evolutionary proximity between these two primates. In a publication in Nature, an international collaboration with researchers from China, USA and Europe, including the Swedish universities KTH-Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska Institutet, reports on the spatial profiles in 113 cell types across the macaque body based on data from 1.1 million single cells covering 45 tissues. Altogether 463 cell-clusters were identified, including many tissue-specific cell types like neurons or muscle cells, but also endothelial, stromal and various immune cells that are shared between many tissues. All data is publicly accessible via the open access (https://db.cngb.org/nhpca/) Non-Human Primate Cell Atlas (NHPCA) allowing users to explore cell clusters, gene expression, species differences and cell-cell ligand-receptor interactions. The new cell atlas resource is the largest non-human cell profile dataset to date and the researchers report cell-cell interaction networks across the body, providing a unique view on some of the developmental processes that shape our body. In addition, the researchers explored expression of known proteins that provide entry points for viruses across all cell-types to give a detailed overview on primate cell type vulnerability to viral infections providing features and tools to study the cellular and molecular components of human physiology and disease. The resource can be used as a fundamental reference for the field and thus facilitate future studies of primates, including our own species.

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