New discoveries in the field of metabolism by applying single-cell and spatial omics

Baocai Xie; Dengfeng Gao; Biqiang Zhou; Shi Chen; Lianrong Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jpha.2023.06.002

New discoveries in the field of metabolism by applying single-cell and spatial omics

J Pharm Anal. 2023 Jul;13(7):711-725. doi: 10.1016/j.jpha.2023.06.002. Epub 2023 Jun 4.

Authors

Baocai Xie^{1

2}, Dengfeng Gao³, Biqiang Zhou⁴, Shi Chen^{1

5}, Lianrong Wang^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Shenzhen Institute of Translational Medicine, Shenzhen Second People's Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University Medical School, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518060, China.
² Department of Respiratory Diseases, The Research and Application Center of Precision Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450014, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Animal Biotech Breeding, College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
⁴ Department of Geriatric & Spinal Pain Multi-Department Treatment, Shenzhen Second People's Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University, Health Science Center, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518035, China.
⁵ Department of Gastroenterology, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Combinatorial Biosynthesis and Drug Discovery, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430071, China.

Abstract

Single-cell multi-Omics (SCM-Omics) and spatial multi-Omics (SM-Omics) technologies provide state-of-the-art methods for exploring the composition and function of cell types in tissues/organs. Since its emergence in 2009, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has yielded many groundbreaking new discoveries. The combination of this method with the emergence and development of SM-Omics techniques has been a pioneering strategy in neuroscience, developmental biology, and cancer research, especially for assessing tumor heterogeneity and T-cell infiltration. In recent years, the application of these methods in the study of metabolic diseases has also increased. The emerging SCM-Omics and SM-Omics approaches allow the molecular and spatial analysis of cells to explore regulatory states and determine cell fate, and thus provide promising tools for unraveling heterogeneous metabolic processes and making them amenable to intervention. Here, we review the evolution of SCM-Omics and SM-Omics technologies, and describe the progress in the application of SCM-Omics and SM-Omics in metabolism-related diseases, including obesity, diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). We also conclude that the application of SCM-Omics and SM-Omics approaches can help resolve the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases in the body and facilitate therapeutic measures for metabolism-related diseases. This review concludes with an overview of the current status of this emerging field and the outlook for its future.

Keywords: CVD; Diabetes; NAFLD; Obesity; SCM-Omics; SM-Omics.

Publication types

Review