A consensus spinal cord cell-type atlas across mouse, macaque, and human.

A cross-species spinal cord atlas integrating >1 million nuclei resolves 111 consensus cell-type groups across mouse, macaque, and human, with dorsal horn divergence.

• Why it matters: A shared molecular framework is missing for linking human spinal cord cell types to animal models, limiting interpretation of disease and injury findings.
• What they did: The study integrates single-nucleus gene expression, chromatin accessibility, and spatial transcriptomics across cervical-to-sacral segments in human, macaque, and mouse, then performs consensus clustering.
• The result: Cell identity and laminar organization are highly conserved, while abundance and expression scale allometrically, with dorsal horn divergence tied to neurotransmitter receptor genes and a primate-specific glycine receptor subunit switch.

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