Welcome!
This app provides interactive access to our single cell RNA-Seq data that is reported in:
Combinatorial transcription factor profiles predict mature and functional human islet α and β cells.
*first co-authors
Abstract
Islet-enriched transcription factors (TFs) exert broad control over cellular processes in pancreatic α and β cells and changes in their expression are associated with developmental state and diabetes. However, the implications of heterogeneity in TF expression across islet cell populations are not well understood. To define this TF heterogeneity and its consequences for cellular function, we profiled >40,000 cells from normal human islets by scRNA-seq and stratified α and β cells based on combinatorial TF expression. Subpopulations of islet cells co-expressing ARX/MAFB (α cells) and MAFA/MAFB (β cells) exhibited greater expression of key genes related to glucose sensing and hormone secretion relative to subpopulations expressing only one or neither TF. Moreover, all subpopulations were identified in native pancreatic tissue from multiple donors. By Patch-seq, MAFA/MAFB co-expressing β cells showed enhanced electrophysiological activity. Thus, these results indicate combinatorial TF expression in islet α and β cells predicts highly functional, mature subpopulations.
Data & Code Availability
Processed data as Seurat object available at zenodo
Raw data available at GEO GSE183568
App scripts to this interactive explorer available at Github
What's New - February 14, 2026
- Resizable plots on all pages with sidebar controls
- Faster violin plots - individual cell points off by default, toggle on via sidebar
- UMAP: square aspect ratio, adjustable point size, viridis color schemes
- Gene info moved to sidebar on all plot pages
- Expression values table with adjustable decimal precision
- Performance logging added
- Code refactoring and optimizations
More details at Github
Violin plots show the distribution of gene expression across cell types (top) and donor age groups (bottom).
Normalized expression counts are
ln(UMI-per-10,000 + 1)
.
The width of each violin represents the density of cells at a given expression level.
Use the sidebar to optionally overlay boxplots (showing median and quartiles) or individual cells.
Plot Options
Gene Info
UMAP (Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection) plots to visualize single cells in two dimensions, where nearby cells have similar transcriptional profiles. The top plot shows expression of the selected gene, with color intensity indicating expression level. The bottom plot shows cells colored by cell type identity. Use the sidebar to adjust point size, plot size, color scheme, and toggle cell type labels.
Plot Options
Gene Info
The dotplot shows your gene of interest (highlighted in yellow) alongside a curated set of known cell type marker genes: GCG (Alpha), INS (Beta), SST (Delta), PPY (Gamma), GHRL (Epsilon), PRSS1 (Acinar), KRT19 (Ductal), PECAM1 (Endothelial), PDGFRB (Stellate), HLA-DRA (Immune). Dot size represents the percentage of cells expressing the gene; color intensity indicates the mean expression z-score.
Plot Options
Gene Info
Expression values for the selected gene across all cell types. Columns show the percentage of cells expressing the gene, mean expression z-score, and average expression. Columns are sorted by z-score (descending) by default. Use the sidebar to adjust decimal precision.