Single-cell immunology: Past, present, and future.

🤖 Plain-English Summary

The immune system is a complex, dynamic, and plastic ecosystem composed of multiple cell types that constantly sense and interact with their local microenvironment to protect from infection and maintain homeostasis. In the past decade, the advent of single-cell genomic approaches has revolutionized our knowledge of the cellular and molecular makeup of the immune system.

🔑 Key Findings

• For over a century, great efforts and ingenuity have been applied to the characterization of immune cells and their microenvironments, but traditional marker-based and bulk technologies left key questions unanswered.
• In the past decade, the advent of single-cell genomic approaches has revolutionized our knowledge of the cellular and molecular makeup of the immune system.
• In this perspective, we outline the past, present, and future applications of single-cell genomics in immunology and discuss how the integration of multiomics at the single-cell level will pave the way for future advances in immunology research and clinical translation.

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