cation · a human ion-channel atlas release v1.0-354 · 10.0m cells
CATION Cell ATlas of ION channels

A single-cell atlas of the ion channelome

Every ion channel.
Every cell type.
One body.

CATION charts 354 curated ion-channel genes across 58 tissues and 738 cell types, integrated from 10.0M cells. Porecast then predicts each cell type's electrophysiology from its channel expression.

354 genes · 60 families · 738 cell types · 58 tissues · 10.0M cells

image/svg+xml human body features 2009-05-27 Sjef text : Kevin (tsaitgaist) REDON http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_body_features.svg cerebral cortex pleura brain heart breast thyroid gland adrenal gland lymph node bone marrow adipose tissue skeletal muscle leukocyte frontal cortex temporal lobe prefrontal cortex pituitary gland atrial appendage aorta coronary artery gastroesophageal junction left ventricle hippocampus hippocampus caecum ileum rectum nose tongue left atrium pulmonary valve mitral valve penis vas deferens seminal vesicle testis epididymis eye nasal septum oral cavity tonsil nasal pharynx lung spinal cord amygdala trachea throat bronchus tricuspid valve diaphragm liver stomach spleen duodenum gall bladder pancreas colon small intestine appendix smooth muscle urinary bladder prostate gland nerve cerebellum cerebellar hemisphere kidney renal cortex bone cartilage esophagus salivary gland parotid gland submandibular gland skin
plate i — the human channelome
Channel expression density region fill = relative cell count per tissue
01 · genes 354 60 IUPHAR/BPS families
02 · cell types 738 54 tissues · 58 in release
03 · tissues 58 from CELLxGENE Census LTS 2025-11-08
04 · cells 10.0M 9,991,136 single cells
05 · predictions 7 features sag r=0.86, peak V r=0.81, AP rate r=0.76
06 · sweeps 161K Patch-seq sweeps from 1,039 donors
plate i — from RNA to electrophysiology

From ion channels to electrical behaviour

Porecast predicts seven electrophysiological features from a cell type's 354-gene ion-channel expression profile. Validated on 161K Patch-seq sweeps from 1,039 mouse visual-cortex neurons, donor-blocked 5-fold cross-validation.

Predictions validated on mouse visual cortex only. Body-wide extrapolation is not claimed.

plate i-b — what the predictions mean

Reading an electrical recording.

Porecast predicts seven properties of a neuron's voltage response. Here is what each one means.

How to read an electrophysiology recording A schematic voltage trace showing a neuron's response to a current step, with annotations for resting potential, sag, action potentials, AP rate and peak voltage. +30 0 -45 -70 Voltage (mV) 0 200 700 1200 1400 Time (ms) Current step (sustained injection) Resting potential The cell's idle voltage (~-70 mV) Sag Voltage droop during input Peak voltage Spike maximum (~+30 mV) Action potentials Electrical spikes used to signal AP rate Spikes per second

See predicted traces for 12 cell types →

plate ii — from fingerprint to physiology

From channel expression to electrical behaviour.

Porecast — the method companion to CATION — predicts electrophysiological features directly from ion-channel expression. Seven features are predicted with Pearson correlations from 0.15 to 0.86, validated on held-out donors.

pip install porecast  ·  docs.cationatlas.com

plate iii — index

Explore the atlas