Single-cell expression profiling reveals dynamic flux of cardiac stromal, vascular and immune cells in health and injury

  1. Nona Farbehi
  2. Ralph Patrick
  3. Aude Dorison
  4. Munira Xaymardan
  5. Vaibhao Janbandhu
  6. Katharina Wystub-Lis
  7. Joshua W K Ho
  8. Robert E Nordon  Is a corresponding author
  9. Richard P Harvey  Is a corresponding author
  1. Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Australia
  2. University of New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

Besides cardiomyocytes (CM), the heart contains numerous stromal cell types which play key roles in heart repair, regeneration and disease, including fibroblast, vascular and immune cells. However, a comprehensive understanding of this interactive cell community is lacking. We performed single cell RNA-sequencing of the total non-CM fraction and enriched (Pdgfra-GFP+) fibroblast lineage cells from murine hearts at days 3 and 7 post-sham or myocardial infarction surgery. Clustering of >30,000 single cells allowed us to identify >30 populations representing 9 cell lineages, included a previously undescribed fibroblast lineage trajectory present in both sham and MI hearts leading to a uniquely activated cell state defined in part by a strong anti-WNT transcriptome signature. We also defined three novel myofibroblast subtypes expressing either pro-fibrotic or anti-fibrotic signatures, and 8 macrophage subsets. These comprehensive cardiac single cell transcriptome data provide an entry point for deeper analysis of cardiac homeostasis, inflammation, fibrosis, repair and regeneration.

Data availability

Sequencing data have been deposited in the ArrayExpress database at EMBL-EBI (www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress) under accession codes E-MTAB-7376 and E-MTAB-7365.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Nona Farbehi

    Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Ralph Patrick

    Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0956-1026
  3. Aude Dorison

    Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Munira Xaymardan

    Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Vaibhao Janbandhu

    Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Katharina Wystub-Lis

    Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Joshua W K Ho

    Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Robert E Nordon

    Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia
    For correspondence
    r.nordon@unsw.edu.au
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Richard P Harvey

    Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia
    For correspondence
    r.harvey@victorchang.edu.au
    Competing interests
    Richard P Harvey, Reviewing editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9950-9792

Funding

Stem Cells Australia (SR110001002)

  • Richard P Harvey

National Health and Medical Research Council (1118576)

  • Richard P Harvey

National Health and Medical Research Council (1074386)

  • Richard P Harvey

Fondation Leducq (15CVD03)

  • Richard P Harvey

National Heart Foundation of Australia (100848)

  • Joshua W K Ho

St. Vincent's Clinic Foundation and New South Wales Government Cardiovascular Research Network (100711)

  • Richard P Harvey

University of New South Wales

  • Nona Farbehi

Fondation Leducq (13CVD01)

  • Richard P Harvey

National Health and Medical Research Council (1105271)

  • Joshua W K Ho

National Health and Medical Research Council (573707)

  • Richard P Harvey

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This research was performed following the guidelines, and with the approval, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research/St. Vincent's Animal Experimentation Ethics Committee (research approvals 13/01, 13/02, 16/03 and 16/10).

Reviewing Editor

  1. Edward Morrisey, University of Pennsylvania, United States

Publication history

  1. Received: November 26, 2018
  2. Accepted: March 25, 2019
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: March 26, 2019 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: April 11, 2019 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2019, Farbehi et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 22,783
    Page views
  • 3,125
    Downloads
  • 274
    Citations

Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: Scopus, Crossref, PubMed Central.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Nona Farbehi
  2. Ralph Patrick
  3. Aude Dorison
  4. Munira Xaymardan
  5. Vaibhao Janbandhu
  6. Katharina Wystub-Lis
  7. Joshua W K Ho
  8. Robert E Nordon
  9. Richard P Harvey
(2019)
Single-cell expression profiling reveals dynamic flux of cardiac stromal, vascular and immune cells in health and injury
eLife 8:e43882.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.43882

Further reading

    1. Cell Biology
    2. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Hayley Porter, Yang Li ... Suzana Hadjur
    Research Article Updated

    Most studies of cohesin function consider the Stromalin Antigen (STAG/SA) proteins as core complex members given their ubiquitous interaction with the cohesin ring. Here, we provide functional data to support the notion that the SA subunit is not a mere passenger in this structure, but instead plays a key role in the localization of cohesin to diverse biological processes and promotes loading of the complex at these sites. We show that in cells acutely depleted for RAD21, SA proteins remain bound to chromatin, cluster in 3D and interact with CTCF, as well as with a wide range of RNA binding proteins involved in multiple RNA processing mechanisms. Accordingly, SA proteins interact with RNA, and R-loops, even in the absence of cohesin. Our results place SA1 on chromatin upstream of the cohesin ring and reveal a role for SA1 in cohesin loading which is independent of NIPBL, the canonical cohesin loader. We propose that SA1 takes advantage of structural R-loop platforms to link cohesin loading and chromatin structure with diverse functions. Since SA proteins are pan-cancer targets, and R-loops play an increasingly prevalent role in cancer biology, our results have important implications for the mechanistic understanding of SA proteins in cancer and disease.

    1. Cell Biology
    Emmeline Marchal-Duval, Méline Homps-Legrand ... Arnaud A Mailleux
    Research Article

    Matrix remodeling is a salient feature of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Targeting cells driving matrix remodeling could be a promising avenue for IPF treatment. Analysis of transcriptomic database identified the mesenchymal transcription factor PRRX1 as upregulated in IPF. PRRX1, strongly expressed by lung fibroblasts, was regulated by a TGF-b/PGE2 balance in vitro in control and IPF human lung fibroblasts, while IPF fibroblast-derived matrix increased PRRX1 expression in a PDGFR dependent manner in control ones. PRRX1 inhibition decreased human lung fibroblast proliferation by downregulating the expression of S phase cyclins. PRRX1 inhibition also impacted TGF-β driven myofibroblastic differentiation by inhibiting SMAD2/3 phosphorylation through phosphatase PPM1A upregulation and TGFBR2 downregulation, leading to TGF-β response global decrease. Finally, targeted inhibition of Prrx1 attenuated fibrotic remodeling in vivo with intra-tracheal antisense oligonucleotides in bleomycin mouse model of lung fibrosis and ex vivo using human and mouse precision-cut lung slices. Our results identified PRRX1 as a key mesenchymal transcription factor during lung fibrogenesis.