Gene regulation in the healthy adult human spinal cord
This project reveals cell type specific latent enhancer states in the human spinal cord, and cellular regionalization that redefines diversity therein. We introduce Sequential Tagmentation with Barcoded sequencing (STAB-seq), a method of simultaneously profiling epigenetic marks for chromatin silencing or activation in parallel with chromatin accessibility. We discriminate regional cellular diversity along the rostro-caudal axis of the spinal cord through simultaneous snRNA-seq and snATAC-seq measurements from five organ donors, minimizing postmortem interval effects. Finally, we establish optimal transport as a rigorous computational method for robust multimodal integration of snRNA-seq and snATAC-seq data.