Single-cell sequencing of normal fallopian tube epithelial cells

Overview

The Dataset

Full-length single-cell RNA sequencing (Smart-seq2, one library per cell) of benign fallopian tube epithelium:

• 1,857 cells from 5 donors, across 6 plates
• 1,195 secretory, 520 ciliated, 119 immune and 23 stromal cells, in nine data-driven clusters
• Raw reads and the authors' count matrix from GEO (GSE139079)

Key Findings

• Secretory heterogeneity: the authors resolve several secretory cell subtypes in the normal fallopian tube.
• Link to cancer: signatures of these normal states stratify high-grade serous ovarian cancers and associate with patient outcome.
• Cross-study agreement: reanalyzed here, the secretory-minus-ciliated contrast agrees with the postmenopausal atlas of Lengyel et al. (2022) with Spearman's rho of 0.819 over 7,065 genes.