ABSTRACT
Functional tissue units (FTUs) form the basic building blocks of organs and are important for understanding and modeling the healthy physiological function of the organ and changes during disease states. In this first comprehensive catalog of FTUs, we document the definition, physical dimensions, vasculature, and cellular composition of 22 anatomically correct, nested functional tissue units (FTUs) in 10 healthy human organs. The catalog includes datasets, illustrations, an interactive online FTU explorer, and a large printable poster. All data and code are freely available. This is part of a larger ongoing international effort to construct a Human Reference Atlas (HRA) of all cells in the human body.
ABSTRACT
More than 150 scientists from 17 consortia are collaborating on an international project to build a Human Reference Atlas, which maps all 37 trillion cells in the healthy adult human body. The initial release of this atlas provided hierarchical lists of the anatomical structures, cell types, and biomarkers in 11 organs. Here, we describe the methods we used as part of this initiative to build the first open, computer-readable, and comprehensive database of the adult human blood vasculature, called the Human Reference Atlas-Vasculature Common Coordinate Framework (HRA-VCCF). It includes 993 vessels and their branching connections, 10 cell types, and 10 biomarkers. With this paper we are releasing additional details on vessel types and subtypes, branching sequence, anastomoses, portal systems, microvasculature, functional tissue units, mappings to regions vessels supply or drain, geometric properties of vessels, and links to 3D reference objects. Future versions will add variants and connections to the lymph vasculature; and, it will iteratively expand and improve the database as additional experimental data become available through the participating consortia.
