Department of Neurology, Tianjin Neurological Institute, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China.
Front Immunol. 2022 Nov 2;13:1004885. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1004885. eCollection 2022.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common dementia without an effective cure at least partially due to incomplete understanding of the disease. Inflammation has emerged as a central player in the onset and progression of AD. As innate lymphoid cells, natural killer (NK) cells orchestrate the initiation and evolution of inflammatory responses. Yet, the transcriptomic features of NK cells in AD remain poorly understood. We assessed the diversity of NK cells using web-based single-cell RNA sequencing data of blood NK cells from patients with AD and control subjects and flow cytometry. We identified a contraction of NK cell compartment in AD, accompanied by a reduction of cytotoxicity. Unbiased clustering revealed four subsets of NK cells in AD, i.e., CD56 NK cells, CD56 effector NK cells, adaptive NK cells, and a unique NK cell subset that is expanded and characterized by upregulation of CX3CR1, TBX21, MYOM2, DUSP1, and ZFP36L2, and negatively correlated with cognitive function in AD patients. Pseudo-temporal analysis revealed that this unique NK cell subset was at a late stage of NK cell development and enriched with transcription factors TBX21, NFATC2, and SMAD3. Together, our study identified a distinct NK cell subset and its potential involvement in AD.
阿尔茨海默病(AD)是最常见的痴呆症,目前尚无有效的治疗方法,部分原因是对该疾病的了解不完整。炎症已成为 AD 发病和进展的核心因素。自然杀伤(NK)细胞作为先天淋巴细胞,协调炎症反应的启动和演变。然而,AD 中 NK 细胞的转录组特征仍知之甚少。我们使用基于网络的 AD 患者和对照者血液 NK 细胞的单细胞 RNA 测序数据以及流式细胞术评估了 NK 细胞的多样性。我们发现 AD 中 NK 细胞区室收缩,同时细胞毒性降低。无偏聚类揭示了 AD 中的四个 NK 细胞亚群,即 CD56 NK 细胞、CD56 效应 NK 细胞、适应性 NK 细胞和一个独特的 NK 细胞亚群,该亚群扩增并表现为 CX3CR1、TBX21、MYOM2、DUSP1 和 ZFP36L2 的上调,与 AD 患者的认知功能呈负相关。拟时分析表明,这个独特的 NK 细胞亚群处于 NK 细胞发育的晚期阶段,富含转录因子 TBX21、NFATC2 和 SMAD3。总之,我们的研究确定了一个独特的 NK 细胞亚群及其在 AD 中的潜在作用。
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