Department of Respiratory Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, 570100, China.
The Second Affiliated Clinical College, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, 570100, China.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jul 9;14(1):15778. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66947-5.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the most predominant type of idiopathic interstitial pneumonia and has an increasing incidence, poor prognosis, and unclear pathogenesis. In order to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying IPF further, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing analysis on three healthy controls and five IPF lung tissue samples. The results revealed a significant shift in epithelial cells (ECs) phenotypes in IPF, which may be attributed to the differentiation of alveolar type 2 cells to basal cells. In addition, several previously unrecognized basal cell subtypes were preliminarily identified, including extracellular matrix basal cells, which were increased in the IPF group. We identified a special population of fibroblasts that highly expressed extracellular matrix-related genes, POSTN, CTHRC1, COL3A1, COL5A2, and COL12A1. We propose that the close interaction between ECs and fibroblasts through ligand-receptor pairs may have a critical function in IPF development. Collectively, these outcomes provide innovative perspectives on the complexity and diversity of basal cells and fibroblasts in IPF and contribute to the understanding of possible mechanisms in pathological lung fibrosis.
特发性肺纤维化（IPF）是最主要的特发性间质性肺炎类型，其发病率不断增加，预后不良，发病机制尚不清楚。为了进一步研究 IPF 的分子机制，我们对 3 名健康对照者和 5 名 IPF 肺组织样本进行了单细胞 RNA 测序分析。结果显示，IPF 中上皮细胞（ECs）表型发生了显著变化，这可能归因于肺泡 2 型细胞向基底细胞的分化。此外，初步鉴定出了几种以前未被识别的基底细胞亚型，包括细胞外基质基底细胞，其在 IPF 组中增加。我们鉴定了一种特殊的成纤维细胞群体，其高度表达细胞外基质相关基因 POSTN、CTHRC1、COL3A1、COL5A2 和 COL12A1。我们提出，ECs 和成纤维细胞通过配体-受体对的紧密相互作用可能在 IPF 发展中具有关键作用。总之，这些结果为 IPF 中基底细胞和成纤维细胞的复杂性和多样性提供了新的视角，并有助于理解病理性肺纤维化的可能机制。
