Recent years have seen a vast amount of multi-omics data related to brain development emerging, with rapid advancement of neurodevelopmental research and high-throughput technologies. However, lack of a comprehensive resource integrating these datasets limited researchers' ability to fully uncover the brain's developmental processes and influencing factors from multiple dimensions.

Now, a research team from the Institute of Biophysics (IBP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Beijing Normal University has integrated datasets related to brain development from different layers, including single-cell transcriptomics, spatial transcriptomics, and epigenomics, to build the MAPbrain, a Multi-omics Atlas of the Primate brain.

This is the first database focusing on the collection and integration of multi-omics data related to primate brain development, revealing the spatiotemporal dynamics of gene expression regulation during brain maturation.

This study was published in Nucleic Acids Research on October 18, 2024.

MAPbrain integrates three types of omics data from humans and five non-human primate species, covering six species in total. It contains over 21 million cells and identifies 161 cell types across 38 brain regions and 436 sub-regions, spanning 164 different developmental time points, according to the researchers.

"Users can interactively access the data in the database and compare data across species, brain regions, and developmental stages," said WANG Xiaoqun, one of the corresponding author of the study and a researcher from IBP.

MAPbrain also supports linked searches and comparisons of transcriptomic and epigenomic data, said WANG.

The database provides 1,078,709 gene expression sets specific to different developmental stages, helping users better understand the function and role of particular genes in developmental biology.

"As a continuously updated open data-sharing platform, MAPbrain offers users easy access to existing data," said HE Shunmin, another corresponding author of this study, also from IBP.

To further support users, MAPbrain has developed a "CellMapping" feature that allows users to integrate their own data with the database, helping predict information such as cell types, and providing real-time feedback.

This truly enables data integration and application, supporting open access and sharing of large-scale brain development data and promoting cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and translational applications.

"MAPbrain looks forward to the active participation of researchers, continuously gathering more high-quality brain development research data, thereby effectively advancing the field of neurodevelopmental biology," said Professor WANG.