Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, refers to a group of lung diseases that block airflow and make it difficult to breathe. About16 million Americans have this disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although there is no cure for COPD, there are treatments available.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, refers to a group of lung diseases that block airflow and make it difficult to breathe. About16 million Americans have this disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although there is no cure for COPD, there are treatments available.
“We used single-cell RNA sequencing to analyze gene expression profiles of lung tissue obtained from patients with COPD and from mice exposed to cigarette smoke,” said Rosas, senior author of the study and section chief of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine in the Department of Medicine at Baylor.
The researchers separated all the cells within the lung and measured the gene expression profile of each individual cell. Then, they organized this information in a cell atlas that is available to researchers interested in exploring gene expression in individual cells in lungs with the disease.
“Our analysis identified novel changes in gene expression and cellular interactions in three distinct cell populations commonly implicated in COPD: epithelial (in the lungs), endothelial (in blood vessels) and macrophage cells (part of the immune system),” Rosas said.
“In the current study, Drs. Maor Sauler and John McDonough of Yale University, corresponding authors of the work, demonstrate that endothelial cells in capillary blood vessels in COPD lungs are inflamed, and that a subpopulation of macrophages expressing high levels of metallothioneins, proteins that regulate the balance of certain metals in the body, seems to contribute to the disease,” Rosas said.
This innovative translational study is a continuation of a successful long-standing collaboration with Dr. Naftali Kaminski and colleagues at Yale University, which has led to the description of multiple lung cell atlases in health and disease that are now publicly available.
Future studies evaluating outcomes of specific alterations identified in this study will provide further insights into mechanisms that contribute to COPD and having a large and accessible data set of COPD cells, such as the cell atlas here, is an essential tool to begin developing therapies to target the condition.
Read the complete report in the journal Nature Communications.
For the complete list of authors, their affiliations and financial support for this project see the publication.
