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REVIEW article

Front. Endocrinol.

Sec. Diabetes: Molecular Mechanisms

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1663728

This article is part of the Research TopicInflammatory biomarkers in Type 1 diabetesView all 3 articles

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in studies of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D): modern state-of-the-art and technical peculiarities

Provisionally accepted
Azat  Vadimovich AbdullatypovAzat Vadimovich Abdullatypov1,2*Olga  Valentinovna GlushkovaOlga Valentinovna Glushkova1,3Ekaterina  Sergeevna PetriaikinaEkaterina Sergeevna Petriaikina1Viktor  Pavlovich BogdanovViktor Pavlovich Bogdanov4,5Zoya  Glebovna AntyshevaZoya Glebovna Antysheva4,5Dmitry  Vyacheslavovich TabakovDmitry Vyacheslavovich Tabakov4,5Vasilii  Eduardovich AkimovVasilii Eduardovich Akimov1Vladimir  Sergeevich YudinVladimir Sergeevich Yudin1Anton  Arturovich KeskinovAnton Arturovich Keskinov1Sergey  Mikhailovich YudinSergey Mikhailovich Yudin1Pavel  Yuryevich VolchkovPavel Yuryevich Volchkov4,5,6Dmitry  Vladimirovich SvetlichnyyDmitry Vladimirovich Svetlichnyy1*Mary  WoroncowMary Woroncow5,7Veronika  Igorevna SkvortsovaVeronika Igorevna Skvortsova8
  • 1Federal State Budgetary Institution «Centre for Strategic Planning and Management of Biomedical Health Risks» of the Federal medical and biological agency, Moscow, Russia
  • 2Institute of Basic Biological Problems RAS - a separate subdivision of Federal Research Center "Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences", Pushchino, Russia
  • 3Institute of Cell Biophysics - a separate subdivision of the Federal Research Center "Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences", Pushchino, Russia
  • 4Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution "Federal Research Center for innovator and emerging biomedical and pharmaceutical technologies", Moscow, Russia
  • 5Moscow Center for Advanced Studies, Moscow, Russia
  • 6GBUZ Moskovskij Kliniceskij Naucno-prakticeskij Centr imeni A S Loginova Departamenta zdravoohranenia goroda Moskvy, Moscow, Russia
  • 7Moskovskij gosudarstvennyj universitet imeni M V Lomonosova, Moscow, Russia
  • 8Federal'noe mediko-biologiceskoe agentstvo Rossii, Moscow, Russia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is an autoimmune disease leading to destruction of pancreatic β-cells and loss of insulin production ability. Pathogenesis of T1DM is a complex process involving different types of immune cells, particularly, T-lymphocytes (including effector cells, Thelpers, regulatory lymphocytes, MAIT cells), B-lymphocytes, natural killers, monocytes, dendritic cells, and other minor cellular populations that form autoimmune response against islet cells.The heterogeneity of intercellular communications in the pancreas and adjacent lymph nodes of patients, as well as diverse functional state of islet cells, make a significant contribution to the pathogenesis of this disease. This makes the detailed consideration of immune cell 1 Abdullatypov et al.subpopulations very essential for investigating the pathogenesis of the disease. Understanding the relations between changes of transcriptional activities in different cellular subtypes may allow to study the pathogenetic mechanism of T1DM in more detail, which could further be applied in both diagnostics and treatment. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) allows to examine the interactions between immune cell subtypes and to identify differentially expressed genes specific for early stages of T1DM in particular cell subtypes. This review summarizes modern studies focusing on application of scRNA-seq for the studies of T1DM pathogenesis, novel biomarkers of manifestation, progression, and treatment efficiency for diabetes and its complications. The review covers studies on different cells and human tissues (endocrine, exocrine and immune pancreatic cells, PBMC) and model animals with experimental T1DM and its complications.

Keywords: type 1 diabetes mellitus, ScRNA-seq, complete transcriptome analysis, cDNA libraries, Third-generation sequencing

Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 12 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Abdullatypov, Glushkova, Petriaikina, Bogdanov, Antysheva, Tabakov, Akimov, Yudin, Keskinov, Yudin, Volchkov, Svetlichnyy, Woroncow and Skvortsova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Azat Vadimovich Abdullatypov, Federal State Budgetary Institution «Centre for Strategic Planning and Management of Biomedical Health Risks» of the Federal medical and biological agency, Moscow, Russia
Dmitry Vladimirovich Svetlichnyy, Federal State Budgetary Institution «Centre for Strategic Planning and Management of Biomedical Health Risks» of the Federal medical and biological agency, Moscow, Russia

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