Fig. 1

Identification of regions and transporters for urate handling in human kidneys. A Annotation of the 14 clusters by the marker genes listed in the Additional file 1: Table S2. Dot plot visualizes how gene expression changes across different clusters (such as anatomical regions, or cell groups). The size of the dot encodes the gene positive percentage (%Exp) of cells within a cluster, while the color encodes the average expression level (Avg Exp) across all cells within a cluster (red is high). Podo: podocyte; PTa-c: three clusters of proximal tubule; LOH (DL): the loop of Henle (descending loop); LOH (AL): the loop of Henle (ascending loop); DCT: distal convoluted tubule; CNT: connecting tubule; PC: principal cell; ICA: intercalated cell type A; ICB: intercalated cell type B; EDC: endothelial cell; MGC: mesangial cell; and PEC: parietal epithelial cell. B Left: schematic diagram of human nephron anatomy, and unsupervised clustering of healthy human adult renal cells. Right: bar plot shows proportion of cell clusters of the nephron in all data sets. C Dot plot of PT marker genes listed in the Additional file 1: Tables S3: S1 markers and S3 markers. S1–S3, S1–S3 segments of proximal tubules. D Dot plot of the gene expression of urate transporters in the renal regions. E Schematic diagram of urate transporters expressed in the PT and DL clusters. The apical membrane is to the left of the cells and the basolateral membrane is to the right. Red symbols represent transporters which are reconstituted to urate reabsorption. Blue symbols represent transporters which are reconstituted to urate secretion. Arrows indicate directions of urate flow