Arthritis Research & Therapy is calling for submissions to our collection on The Human Cell Atlas applied to musculoskeletal disease. The aim of the HCA is “to create comprehensive reference maps of all human cells—the fundamental units of life—as a basis for understanding human health and diagnosing, monitoring, and treating disease”. Until now, functionally relevant cell populations have proven difficult to define, characterize and study in health and disease across all the anatomical structures of the MSK system. Consequently, a cellular framework for the development of targeted therapies, especially for physical-metabolic disorders of the MSK system is lacking. Two revolutions have occurred that can help bring our understanding of the cell populations that comprise the MSK system to the same level that has been achieved for blood borne cells. The first is minimally invasive biopsy procedures that allow resident tissue cells to be obtained, often over time and the second is the advent of single cell sequencing and tissue imaging that allow individual cells to be characterized and their location within tissues mapped at high resolution. Both technologies have been essential, across other tissues and systems, to the foundation of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) and are now being applied to MSK tissues.
This collection of articles on the application of the HCA to MSK diseases aims to present recent advances within the field. The call is open for any paper (systematic or narrative reviews, original research articles, and unique clinical cases) within the reach of the overall theme.
Suggestions for possible topics could include:
• Cell Atlases of the key structures in joints
• Atlas of genetic or congenital abnormalities of the MSK system
• Interplay of MSK diseases with the immune system
• Interplay with other diseases of the locomotor system (nerves and muscle)
Conflicts of interest:
Christopher Buckley’s research salary is paid by the Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research. He is joint Editor of ARRT. Sarah Snelling is lead coordinator for the HCA Musculoskeletal Bionetwork. She is funded from a CZI grant and the Oxford NIHR BRC.