Two subtypes of cells found in pulmonary blood vessels have been dubbed a dynamic duo by scientists at the University of Illinois, Chicago. A team of scientists at the university have analysed gene expression data from over thirty-five thousand blood vessels cells using florescence cell sorting and RNA sequencing. The two subtypes of cells have been found to express specific genes responsible for immune responses and regeneration respectively. One subtype referred to as immune endothelial cells (immuneECs) predominantly express inflammatory and immunoregulatory genes while the other subtypes referred to as developmental endothelial cells (devECs) express more genes involved with cellular development, proliferation and regeneration.
Cells from the “immuneECs” group interacted more with histocompatibility complex genes which highlight pathogens for infection-fighting T-cells. Cells from the “devECs” group expressed more repair and developmental genes such as sox17, promoting regeneration and blood vessel growth. The groups were shown to have a “teeter-tottering” relationship between these two vital processes. This balance may be a possible target which can be utilised to treat acute respiratory conditions.
Rehman, a UIC professor involved in the study commented:
“Across our experiments, consistently we observed that the blood vessel cells of the lung seem to have these different functions and groupings, and the two predominant groups become even more distinct when responding to infection or stress”.
“This study tells us that if we want to treat the blood vessels of the lungs, we should specifically target the subtype that is out of balance. If the immune response is excessive as is often the case in severe COVID-19, it might be important to dampen the activity of immune regulatory endothelial cells while enhancing the growth of the regenerative endothelial cells”.
The article can be found here:
University of Illinois Chicago. “A dynamic duo of cells identified in lung blood vessels: Scientists identify subtypes of lung endothelial cells that promote inflammation, regeneration.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 June 2022. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220614153727.htm
The Original publication can be found here:
Lianghui Zhang, Shang Gao, Zachary White, Yang Dai, Asrar B. Malik, Jalees Rehman. Single-cell transcriptomic profiling of lung endothelial cells identifies dynamic inflammatory and regenerative subpopulations. JCI Insight, 2022; 7 (11) DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.158079
