Neutrophils, the most numerous immune cells in the human body, play a key role in responding to infections and tissue damage. Despite their significance, scientists have struggled to understand how these cells function across different tissues and disease states.
An international team led by researchers from the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Yale University, and Westlake University in China has introduced NeuMap. This new resource is described as the first comprehensive map of neutrophil organization throughout various tissues, life stages, and disease conditions. The findings were published in Nature after analyzing over one million cells with next-generation sequencing technologies.
Dr. Iván Ballesteros of UC3M and CNIC highlighted a central discovery: "What is most surprising is that individual neutrophils live only a few hours, yet this cell population maintains a stable architecture throughout life. It is a pattern that emerges from chaos. Understanding this logic opens new avenues to guide immunity toward healing."
The study’s authors noted that previous research mostly focused on single diseases like cancer or infection. Yale-CNIC scientist Andrés Hidalgo stated: "Here, we brought together an enormous variety of conditions-from pregnancy and fetal development to infections, cancer, myocardial infarction, and aging."
Daniela Cerezo-Wallis of Yale University explained: "By integrating all these data, we were able to observe how neutrophils follow common patterns despite their apparent diversity."
Andrea Rubio-Ponce of CNIC said cross-species analysis revealed that many cell programs are conserved between mice and humans. Laiguan Ng from Westlake University added: "This greatly facilitates translation to clinical studies and accelerates the development of biomarkers and new therapies."
NeuMap aims to help researchers identify specific types of neutrophils present in diseases and understand their roles more clearly. The atlas will be made freely available for scientific use worldwide.
The project received funding from organizations including the Cancer Research Institute; Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities / Agencia Estatal de Investigación; Fundación BBVA; Worldwide Cancer Research; NIH; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; Fundación Leducq; IZKF/IMF Münster; Bachynski Family Foundation; Canada Foundation for Innovation; National Medical Research Council and Skin Research Institute of Singapore; National Natural Science Foundation of China; European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR; and the European Regional Development Fund.
