Single‐cell atlas of healthy vocal folds and cellular function in the endothelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition
The vocal fold is an architecturally complex organ comprising a heterogeneous mixture of various layers of individual epithelial and mesenchymal cell lineages. Here we performed single-cell RNA sequencing profiling of 5836 cells from the vocal folds of adult Sprague-Dawley rats. Combined with immunostaining, we generated a spatial and transcriptional map of the vocal fold cells and characterized the subpopulations of epithelial cells, mesenchymal cells, endothelial cells, and immune cells. We also identified a novel epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition-associated epithelial cell subset that was mainly found in the basal epithelial layers. We further confirmed that this subset acts as intermediate cells with similar genetic features to epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Finally, we present the complex intracellular communication network involved homeostasis using CellChat analysis. These studies define the cellular and molecular framework of the biology and pathology of the VF mucosa and reveal the functional importance of developmental pathways in pathological states in cancer.
Authors
- Danling Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1200-0687)
- Yunzhong Zhang
- Tingting Qian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0261-3073)
- Shan Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2142-4307)
- Rui Fang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6202-8162)
- Peifang Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4884-2085)
- Siyi Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1928-5766)
- Luo Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7293-5591)
- Jin Guo
- Wen Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3851-7406)
- Liping Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3100-8454)
- Jun Shao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3478-5881)
- Xiaoning Luo
Institutions
- National Health and Family Planning Commission (CN)
- Eye & ENT Hospital of Fudan University (CN)
- Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences (CN)
- Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital (CN)
- Shenzhen Second People's Hospital (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology
- Southern Medical University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Cell Proliferation
- Published
- 2024-09-08
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/cpr.13723
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.47
Funders
- Guangdong Provincial Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- Shanghai Municipal Health Commission
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
- Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital