COORDINATION CORE The coordination core has an administrative and scientific function. It will initiate the administrative process of procuring the human skeletal tissues that will be used by the mineralized tissue project. Our LIMS will be modified to capture all the workflow activities from the acquisition to handoff to the mineralized tissue project group. This includes recording the orientation of the sample relative to the tissue of origin, obtaining a CT scan of the mineral distribution, embedding the tissue for serial sectioning that incorporates four registration points that define a grid structure for cell localization. After widefield histological images are recorded, the same sections are transferred to the mineralization core for the seqFISH studies that identify cell type and individual cell RNA transcriptone profile. Using the same grid system, a 3D cell map will be generated by the data analysis core which in turn will interact with the coordination core to align the histological and 3D cell map. Together the two cores will build a visual representation of the cells within a tissue block that interchangeably relate a specific cell with its transcriptional profile and the active molecular pathways. In an iterative process that will be driven by the coordination core, quality control standards for identification of cell types as well as subdivisions within a cell type will be developed that will serve as the basis for imputing the activity of interacting cells or comparing differences in regulation of cell behavior that underlie dimorphic differences based on sex or ethnicity. As we become proficient in the technologies and data management process of cell mapping, we will shape our data presentation format to that used by other members of the HIVE. By direct interaction with other scientific groups in HuBMAP, we hope to expand the multimodal interrogation of our skeletal tissues and contribute to the technological capabilities of other HuBMAP members. The coordination core will also reach out to the skeletal biology community to make them aware of the resources of the HIVE and provide workshops to help other major skeletal biology groups implement this technology in their research environment. The technologies and concepts of HuBMAP will be transformational for understanding normal and pathological processes in human disease. We want to adapt this experimental platform to tissues of the mineralized skeleton and advocate for its adoption throughout the skeletal research community.
