According to a research published in Antioxidants, a team led by Prof. HAN Wei from Institute of Health and Medical Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) published a single-cell atlas of radiation pneumonitis (RP), which revealed the possibly involved cell types and signaling pathways mechanism of RP distinctly.
Radiation-induced lung injury (RILI), especially RP, is a common clinical complication in thoracic radiotherapy. However, in-depth understanding of the pathogenesis of RP and comprehensive insight into the cell types and signaling pathways involved were still unclear.
A single-cell pathology landscape of the RP in a mouse model by unbiased single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) was provided in this study. This is the first time researchers illustrated the cell profiles of the mouse model during the development of RP via scRNA-seq. With bioinformatics analysis, they found both type 2 alveolar cells (AT2) and club cells were remarkably reduced after irradiation, and both innate and adaptive immune cells were involved in the occurrence of RP. The fundamental determinants of lung fibrosis and inflammatory response in RP lung tissue of mice were uncovered.
In this research, biologists also analyzed the differentiation trajectory of T cells.
This study revealed the mechanism of RP from the aspects of involved cell types and provided data support for further research.
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other projects.
Description of lung histopathology in RP mice (Image by YANG Miaomiao)
Single-cell transcriptional profiles of RP mice (Image by YANG Miaomiao)
T cell profile and trajectory analysis (Image by YANG Miaomiao)
