Single-cell multimodal omics (scMMO) technologies, which capture multiple modalities of the same cell, have become effective tools for unraveling cell heterogeneity. In recent years, scMMO data has accumulated rapidly; however, it is highly fragmented, severely hindering data access and utilization.

A research team led by Prof. JIN Wenfei from the Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health (SINH) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, constructed and released scMMO-atlas, a single-cell multimodal omics atlas designed to facilitate the access of scMMO data. The study was published in Nucleic Acids Research.

The researchers collected and integrated more than 70 single-cell multimodal datasets to build the scMMO-atlas, which includes scMMO data of 3,168,824 cells from 852 samples in 27 tissues/organs.

The scMMO-atlas provides an interactive portal for visualizing and analyzing the multiple modalities of scMMO data, such as cell annotation, cell subset specific marker genes, cell subset specific chromatin accessibility, gene module and dataset module. It also allows users to upload their data and download analysis results.

Moreover, the scMMO-atlas provides extensive single-cell multimodal omics data, offering an opportunity to integrate big data and further explore cell heterogeneity. Through integrated analysis, the researchers identified more cell subsets of scATAC+RNA data of mouse cerebral cortex in scMMO-atlas than of unimodal omics data. For example, they discovered three astrocyte subsets (Astro-Lars2, Astro-Agt, and Astro-Grm3) and Ex-L6-Tle4-Nrf1, a progenitor of excitatory neurons.

In summary, the scMMO-atlas offers a comprehensive cell atlas, databases, and portals designed to facilitate data utilization and enhance biological insights.