Cellular diversity of esophageal tissue revealed
Date:
April 20, 2022
Source:
Temple University Health System
Summary:
Researchers have defined 11 subsets of cells found in the esophagus
of mice, information that could potentially help clinicians diagnose
or treat certain types of cancer.
FULL STORY ==========================================================================
In a study published today in the journal Nature Communications,
researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
defined 11 subsets of cells found in the esophagus of mice, information
that could potentially help clinicians diagnose or treat certain types
of cancer.
==========================================================================
The tissue in the esophagus -- known as stratified squamous epithelium --
is composed of a basal layer that ultimately gives rise to several layers
of differentiated cells. In this study, researchers sought to find out
whether basal cells were all the same or if any differences existed in
their gene expressions.
"This work lays the foundation to address questions about how these cells relate to the development of cancer," said Kelly Whelan, PhD, senior
author on the study and Assistant Professor of Cancer and Cellular Biology
and Assistant Professor in the Fels Cancer Institute for Personalized
Medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine.
"The next question we have is if we give a mouse a carcinogen, does one particular subset expand or is another particular subset depleted? If so,
we would want to know whether cell types that change in the context of
cancer are functionally contributing to the cancer process and whether
we can target them to help treat or prevent cancer," she said.
To begin to address these questions, Whelan and her fellow researchers
used single cell gene-expression profiling, a tool that identifies all
the genes in a cell or tissue that make messenger RNA. These profiles can
then be used to identify individual cell types within a complex tissue.
"Essentially, we took more than 40,000 cells from mouse esophageal
epithelium and used their individual gene-expression profiles to group
them based on their commonality," she said.
When they started the study, Whelan said the researchers expected
to find about three subsets of cells classified as basal, but they
actually found six subsets, as well as four that were classified
as differentiated. Additionally, one cell type was found to have characteristics of both basal and differentiated cells and was defined
as an intermediate cell type.
"We are now working to isolate these individual cell types in order to determine what the cells do functionally in terms of esophageal biology
in the normal context first and then in the context of cancer. This
study is a fundamental step toward that," said Whelan.
========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Temple_University_Health_System. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Mohammad Faujul Kabir, Adam L. Karami, Ricardo Cruz-Acun~a, Alena
Klochkova, Reshu Saxena, Anbin Mu, Mary Grace Murray, Jasmine
Cruz, Annie D. Fuller, Margarette H. Clevenger, Kumaraswamy Naidu
Chitrala, Yinfei Tan, Kelsey Keith, Jozef Madzo, Hugh Huang,
Jaroslav Jelinek, Tatiana Karakasheva, Kathryn E. Hamilton,
Amanda B. Muir, Marie-Pier Te'treault, Kelly A. Whelan. Single
cell transcriptomic analysis reveals cellular diversity of murine
esophageal epithelium. Nature Communications, 2022; 13 (1) DOI:
10.1038/s41467-022-29747-x ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420133548.htm
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