Skin fibroblasts - Pan-disease fibroblast atlas in skin fibrosis, inflammation, and cancer

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Cell Metadata

cell_type

F6: Myofibroblast

Ontology Term: myofibroblast cellCL:0000186
Synonyms Terms that have the same, or nearly the same, meaning as the selected cell type.: MFB
Category Class of which the cell type is a subclass.: skin fibroblastCL:0002620
Ontology Assessment Disagreements with any aspect of the Cell Ontology.: —
Marker Gene Evidence Gene markers used by researcher to assign this cell annotation.: ACTA2, TAGLN, RUNX2, KIF26B, SULF1, ADAM12, COL8A1, LRRC15, CTHRC1, CCN4, ASPN, POSTN, TNC, COL3A1, WNT2, COL10A1
Canonical Marker Genes: ACTA2, TAGLN, CTHRC1
Rationale: F6-F7 fibroblasts were consistent with myofibroblasts, demonstrating increased expression of ACTA2, TAGLN, and other genes. We distinguished between genes that appeared more specific to myofibroblasts (ACTA2, LRRC15, CCN4, SULF1, RUNX2, COL8A1, ADAM12) and genes that were broadly upregulated in disease although highly expressed in myofibroblasts (POSTN, SPARC, TNC, COL3A1, COL5A1). Cross-tissue myofibroblast populations showed similarity to F6/F7: Myofibroblasts in skin, expressing genes such as KIF26B, LRRC15, COL8A1, and ADAM12, as well as genes we previously showed were less specific to myofibroblasts in skin, such as COL11A1 and COL3A1. This suggests a similar myofibroblast phenotype across tissues. Myofibroblasts have previously been defined based on increased expression of extracellular matrix (ECM) genes alone.(Kuppe et al. 2021) We therefore compared the expression of ECM genes and markers of activated fibroblasts between diseased (lesional) and healthy skin. While expression of these genes was highest in F6/F7 fibroblasts, expression was upregulated in most lesional fibroblasts compared to healthy fibroblasts (Figure 3f). This suggests that while genes such as POSTN, TNC, COL3A1, and SPARC are highly expressed in myofibroblasts, other genes (ADAM12, COL8A1, ACTA2, and LRRC15) are more specific (Figure 3e-g, Supplementary figure 3b).

Inherited from cell_type

Set of Labels Description: Aim to harmonise skin fibroblast labels across studies in both health and disease.
Annotation Method: manual