The Biodiversity Cell Atlas: mapping the tree of life at cellular resolution

Sebe-Pedros, Arnau and Tanay, Amos and Lawniczak, Mara K. N. and Arendt, Detlev and Aerts, Stein and Archibald, John and Arnone, Maria Ina and Blaxter, Mark and Cleves, Phillip and Coelho, Susana M. and Dias, Mafalda and Dunn, Casey and Elek, Anamaria and Frazer, Jonathan and Gabaldon, Toni and Gillis, Jesse and Grau-Bove, Xavier and Guigo, Roderic and Hobert, Oliver and Huerta-Cepas, Jaime and Irimia, Manuel and Klein, Allon and Lewin, Harris and Lowe, Christopher J. and Marlow, Heather and Musser, Jacob M. and Nagy, László and Najle, Sebastian R. and Pachter, Lior and Paez, Sadye (2025) The Biodiversity Cell Atlas: mapping the tree of life at cellular resolution. NATURE, 645 (8082). pp. 877-885. ISSN 0028-0836

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Abstract

Cell types are fundamental functional units that can be traced across the tree of life. Rapid advances in single-cell technologies, coupled with the phylogenetic expansion in genome sequencing, present opportunities for the molecular characterization of cells across a broad range of organisms. Despite these developments, our understanding of eukaryotic cell diversity remains limited and we are far from decoding this diversity from genome sequences. Here we introduce the Biodiversity Cell Atlas initiative, which aims to create comprehensive single-cell molecular atlases across the eukaryotic tree of life. This community effort will be phylogenetically informed, rely on high-quality genomes and use shared standards to facilitate comparisons across species. The Biodiversity Cell Atlas aspires to deepen our understanding of the evolution and diversity of life at the cellular level, encompassing gene regulatory programs, differentiation trajectories, cell-type-specific molecular profiles and inter-organismal interactions.

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