Concentrating cell-type-specific transcriptional signatures in bone marrow from interspecies comparisons.

Conservation of transcriptional signatures enables robust identification of homologous bone marrow cell types across four mouse species, outperforming larger gene lists.

• Why it matters: Accurate cell-type identification is crucial for understanding tissue function and evolution, but current marker-based methods often lack cross-species robustness, limiting comparative studies.
• What they did: The authors generated single-cell RNA sequencing data from bone marrow in four mouse species and developed a strategy that integrates conserved transcriptional levels with cell-type specificity to create signature gene lists.
• The result: These signature genes effectively distinguish homologous cell types across species and tissues, demonstrating superior or comparable performance to larger, less-conserved gene sets, and proving the approach's broad applicability.