Atlas of cells transforms understanding of human body

An ambitious plan to map all 37 trillion cells in the human body is transforming understanding of how our bodies work, scientists report.

The received wisdom said we were built from around 200 types of cell – such as heart muscle or nerve cells.

Instead the Human Cell Atlas project has revealed there are thousands of cell types, with some appearing to be culprits in diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease and cystic fibrosis.

In a flurry of announcements, the formation of the human skeleton and the early immune system have also been mapped out in detail.

The latest discoveries include a map of the gut all the way from the mouth, down the oesphagus, into the stomach and intestines and out the anus.

Researchers looked at the types of cells, where they were located and how they chatted to the other cells around them.

Out of the 1.6 million cells analysed was a new form, called a gut metaplastic cell. It seems to play a role in exacerbating inflammation in the seven million people that live with inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

“We were able to uncover a pathogenic cell type that may play a role in some chronic conditions and could be a target for [drug] intervention in the future,” said Dr Rasa Elmentaite, who did the research at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

There are more than 3,600 scientists across 100 countries collaborating on the Human Cell Atlas, which is one of the most ambitious projects in biology and has been described as the heir to the Human Genome Project to sequence the human genetic code.