Leveraging evolutionary conservation to define cell identity.

Wölbert et al. developed an integrated strategy that uses evolutionary conservation of cell-type specificity plus conserved transcriptional levels to identify robust signature genes.

• Why it matters: Cell identity annotation is difficult in non-model organisms and for rare cell populations, where limited markers and variability can undermine reliable gene signatures.
• What they did: They combined two conservation signals—cell-type-specificity and transcriptional-level conservation—to select signature genes that remain stable across evolutionary contexts.
• The result: The approach should enable cross-species cell identity annotation, improving marker discovery for non-model organisms and rare cell populations.

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