{"doi":"10.1016/j.cell.2025.10.012","title":"Bridging single cells to organs: Mesoscale modules as fundamental units of tissue function","abstract":"Recent studies at molecular and genomic scales have enriched our understanding of life's most fundamental building block: the cell. However, bridging the gap between single-cell phenotypes and the emergent functions of tissues and organs remains a formidable challenge. Here, we suggest that the conceptual span from cells to tissues and organs is so large as to warrant intermediate stepping stones. Drawing inspiration from \"network motifs\"-discrete units of cell-level function that emerge from the interactions of a handful of genes or enzymes-we argue that similarly identifiable units of tissue-level function, which we term \"mesoscale modules,\" emerge from coordinated \"interactions\" among relatively small numbers of cells and their extracellular milieu. We outline several such modules and propose that a concerted effort to study them will deepen our foundational understanding of tissue and organ functions. By developing these mesoscale insights, we anticipate a more tractable and mechanistic approach to complex human conditions rooted in tissue- and organ-scale dysregulation, including developmental defects, cancer, cardiovascular disease, immune-related disorders, infectious disease, and aging.","journal":"Cell","year":2025,"id":514605,"datarank":0.32958368660043297,"base_score":2.1972245773362196,"endowment":2.1972245773362196,"self_citation_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.944,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":228444,"name":"Ronald N. Germain","orcid":"0000-0003-1495-9143","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1079533,"name":"Ginger Hunter","orcid":"0000-0001-7022-9482","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":483430,"name":"Rajan P. Kulkarni","orcid":"0000-0002-2191-4085","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":326303,"name":"Arthur D. Lander","orcid":"0000-0002-4380-5525","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236218,"name":"Pedro R. Löwenstein","orcid":"0000-0002-8427-4409","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":466075,"name":"Jeremy E. Purvis","orcid":"0000-0002-6963-0524","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236794,"name":"Harikesh S. Wong","orcid":"0000-0003-0313-6600","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":351129,"name":"Yun Chen","orcid":"0000-0001-6917-7814","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":160,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:48:29.165853Z","pmid":"41237758","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}