Key authors include Mount Sinai researchers in collaboration with NYU and Karolinska Institute, with NIH and Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation funding.

This technology enables multi-scale analysis and is positioned to inform future studies and therapies in dermatology.

The study, published in Nature Genetics on March 23, 2026, highlights 10 recurrent multicellular neighborhoods that underpin the skin’s molecular and structural organization and vary by body site.

The study finds that disruptions in cellular neighborhoods, particularly the perivascular niche, correlate with disease-related tissue dysfunction in eczema and psoriasis, suggesting neighborhood-focused therapies could outperform single-cell targeting.

Researchers envision the atlas as a foundational reference for future tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and precision dermatology, with potential for adding data layers to refine skin biology and disease understanding.

TNF signaling within the perivascular neighborhood mediates communication between immune and structural cells and helps maintain fibroblast specialization in healthy skin.

The atlas serves as a comprehensive map of healthy skin biology, mapping 1 million+ cells across 22 donors and 15 sites leading to 45 cell types and their spatial organization.

Mount Sinai researchers released the first organ-wide spatial atlas of healthy human skin, mapping gene expression across 15 anatomical sites from 22 donors to identify 45 distinct cell types and their precise locations.

The atlas identifies 10 recurrent multicellular neighborhoods that coordinate essential skin functions like immune surveillance, barrier maintenance, and tissue repair, with neighborhood abundance varying by body site.

A notable perivascular neighborhood around blood vessels houses immune cells and specialized fibroblasts, indicating coordinated immune and structural cell interactions and suggesting a skin-associated lymphoid tissue analogue.

Spatial transcriptomics provides a high-throughput, location-specific gene profiling capability, delivering a Google Maps–style view of healthy skin from organ-wide patterns down to local cell interactions.