Ruan Jingsong, Kang Minkyung, Wang Rong, Xuan Wanling, Cheng Feng, Yao Yao
Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., MDC 8, Tampa, FL, 33612, USA.
Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California, FL, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 7;15(1):28874. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-14225-3.
Pericytes, which share markers with smooth muscle cells (SMCs), are heterogenous cells. Pericytes in the brain and skeletal muscle have different embryonic origins, representing distinct subpopulations. One challenge in the field is that there are no subpopulation-specific pericyte markers. Here, we compared the transcriptomes of muscle pericytes and SMCs, and identified 741 muscle pericyte-enriched genes and 564 muscle SMC-enriched genes. Gene ontology analysis uncovered distinct biological processes and molecular functions in muscle pericytes and SMCs. Interestingly, the Venn diagram revealed only one gene shared by brain and muscle pericytes, suggesting that they are indeed distinct subpopulations with different transcriptional profiles. We further validated that GSN co-localized with PDGFRβSMA cells in small and large blood vessels but not PDGFRβSMA cells, indicating that GSN predominantly marks pericytes and fibroblasts rather than SMCs in skeletal muscle. Negligible levels of GSN were detected in the brain. These findings indicate that GSN may serve as a selective marker for muscle pericytes.
周细胞与平滑肌细胞（SMC）共享标志物，是异质性细胞。脑和骨骼肌中的周细胞具有不同的胚胎起源，代表不同的亚群。该领域的一个挑战是没有亚群特异性的周细胞标志物。在此，我们比较了肌肉周细胞和SMC的转录组，鉴定出741个肌肉周细胞富集基因和564个肌肉SMC富集基因。基因本体分析揭示了肌肉周细胞和SMC中不同的生物学过程和分子功能。有趣的是，维恩图显示脑和肌肉周细胞仅共享一个基因，表明它们确实是具有不同转录谱的不同亚群。我们进一步验证了GSN在小血管和大血管中与PDGFRβSMA细胞共定位，但不与PDGFRβSMA细胞共定位，表明GSN主要标记骨骼肌中的周细胞和成纤维细胞而非SMC。在脑中检测到的GSN水平可忽略不计。这些发现表明GSN可能作为肌肉周细胞的选择性标志物。
