Systems biology approaches to unravel lymphocyte subsets and function

Single-cell technologies have revealed the extensive heterogeneity and complexity of the immune system. Systems biology approaches in immunology have taken advantage of the high-parameter, high-throughput data and analyzed immune cell types in a 'bottom-up' data-driven method. This approach has discovered previously unrecognized cell types and functions. Especially for human immunology, in which experimental manipulations are challenging, systems approach has become a successful means to investigate physiologically relevant contexts. This review focuses on the recent findings in lymphocyte biology, from their development, differentiation into subsets, and heterogeneity in their functions, enabled by these systems approaches. Furthermore, we review examples of the application of findings from systems approach studies and discuss how now to leave the rich dataset in the curse of high dimensionality.

Automated summary

Single-cell technologies have revealed the heterogeneity and complexity of the immune system. Systems biology approaches in immunology have utilized high-parameter, high-throughput data to analyze immune cell types. This approach has led to the discovery of new cell types and functions, especially in the field of human immunology. This review focuses on recent findings in lymphocyte biology enabled by systems approaches and discusses the challenges of handling high-dimensional datasets.