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Ординатура / Хирургия / Библиотека им академика М.И. Перельмана / Книга_896_Библиотеки_им_академика_М_И_Перельмана

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Table 11.3 In vivo animal and human bulk RNA sequencing studies related to wound healing
Animal/human
Cell type/tissue Forearm whole skin Homo sapiens RNA-seq Studied wound healing in DFU and revealed
Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) co-culture with murine dermal broblasts; mouse artery and vein tissues Skin Homo sapiens;
Dorsal wound Mus musculus RNA-seq Studied the therapeutic potential of topical murine
Dorsal wound Mus musculus RNA-seq Studied the therapeutic performance of an adhesive patch
Skin Mus musculus RNA-seq Studied the therapeutic potential of topical BRAF
Muscle satellite cells Mus musculus RNA-seq Studied the impairment of regenerative functions in
Skin wound tissue Mus musculus RNA-seq Studied the therapeutic potential of miR146a-loaded
Skin Rattus norvegicus RNA-seq Studied the therapeutic potential of a biological adhesive
Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC)
model
Homo sapiens; Mus musculus
Streptococcus agalactiae
Homo sapiens RNA-seq Studied the therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stem
Modality/ platform Outcome References
inammatory biomarkers that correlate with enhanced wound healing, including angiogenesis regulators
RNA-seq Studied the impact of diabetes on angiogenesis and
demonstrated that the diabetic stroma suppresses angiogenesis, with extensive transcriptional alterations in endothelial cells
RNA-seq Studied the group B streptococcus (GBS) infection and
adaptation of the pathogen in the diabetic wound environment, demonstrating transcriptional changes both in the host and pathogen
macrophage delivery via alginate dressings in diabetic wounds, demonstrating enhanced wound healing
that delivers contractions in the vicinity of the wound, demonstrating enhanced diabetic wound healing by providing mechanical reinforcement
inhibitor therapy, demonstrating that MAPK activation by topical BRAF inhibition accelerates wound healing
diabetic mice by extracellular adenosine (eAdo), and further showed that inhibition of the ENTs-ADK-AMPK signaling axis is a potential therapeutic target in eAdo-compromised muscle stem cells
engineered exosomes released from silk broin patch, targeting IRAK1, and demonstrated the successful inhibition of the NF-κB signaling pathway invitro, and enhanced wound healing invivo
developed from snail mucus on diabetic rats, which exhibited superior tissue adhesion properties, in addition to promoting healing, epithelial regeneration, and angiogenesis.
cell-derived exosomes preconditioned with Nocardia rubra cell wall skeleton (Nr-CWS), which were shown to promote revascularization, leading to faster diabetic wound healing
Y. H. Pita-Juarez et al.
Theocharidis etal. [5]; GSE143735 Singh etal. [6]; GSE181881
Keogh etal. [7]; GSE201342
Theocharidis etal. [8]; GSE149419 Theocharidis etal. [9]; GSE154132
Escuin-Ordinas etal. [10]; GSE148037 Han etal. [11]; GSE175786
Li etal. [35]; GSE217981
Deng etal. [12]; GSE206113
Li etal. [36]; GSE197900
cell lines from mouse dermal broblasts: one from wild-type mice and one from db/db mice, which closely resemble T2DM. The diabetic stroma was shown to suppress angio­genesis and result in extensive transcriptional alterations in endothelial cells, exhibiting over-representation of cytokine signaling, apoptosis, and collagen degradation-related path­ways. The study also discovered a specic subset of stromal precursor cells (ABCB5+ SPs), which when injected on the wound site, markedly accelerated the healing process.
Accordingly, aiming to elucidate the impact of pathogen infection in the diabetic wound, Keogh etal. [7] studied the Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection and adaptation of the pathogen in the diabetic wound environment. The authors performed bulk RNA-seq in mice with four distinct groups,
split by diabetic status and infection with S. agalactiae. The dual RNA-seq approach demonstrated transcriptional changes both in the host and pathogen, revealing that GBS further promoted inammation in an already hyper­inammatory setting. Particularly, they unraveled the com­plex mechanism of GBS adaptation to the wound environment by studying GBS expression and identied specic upregu­lated virulence factors and provided key information in the development of the diabetic wound’s innate immune response, which can steer toward inammatory or regenera­tive wound healing.
Bulk RNA-seq has been also employed to uncover pro­spective therapeutic avenues within the context of wound healing or to characterize the therapeutic mechanisms of
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action. Theocharidis etal. [8] explored the therapeutic pos­sibilities of administering murine macrophages, either in pri­mary form or their secretome, topically through alginate dressings in the treatment of diabetic wounds. The authors performed bulk RNA-seq in mouse samples utilizing distinct macrophage populations, in order to study the effects of treatment across the tissue transcriptome. Alginate dressings demonstrated desirable properties as a delivery platform for topical applications, whereas the macrophage treatment enhanced wound healing, primarily owing to the utilization of polarized macrophage populations and their secretome. RNA-seq allowed a deeper interrogation of the effect of mac­rophage treatment, and highlighted the different wound heal­ing related processes, like keratinization, and anchor junctioning, whereas vascularization and inammation related pathways were activated depending on the type of macrophages that were applied to the wound.
In a subsequent study [9], which aimed to assess the ef­cacy of a new formulation for a patch to be applied on dia­betic wounds, RNA-seq was employed to elucidate the differences in the transcriptional landscape of the skin between three groups: no treatment, treatment with a con­ventional patch, and treatment with the novel formulation. The new formulation allowed for strikingly rapid wound clo­sure when compared to the conventional one, and RNA-seq provided potential genes, including Il17a, Il17f, Il19, Il21, and Il22, painting an inammatory landscape, as well as pathways of interest, which might be driving this difference in healing speed, such as processes linked to muscle contrac­tion and metal ion transport.
RNA-seq can also be utilized to study the effects of thera­peutic compound treatment, similar to how it was utilized by Escuin-Ordinas etal. [10]. In this study, wounds were iso­lated, including both the epidermis and dermis area in db/db mice treated with vemurafenib or a vehicle control. The authors highlighted genes that are related to hair follicle development and proliferation and by integrating the upregu­lated genes with ChIP-seq data they implicated Tcf7 as a key transcription factor during wound healing. Similarly, Han etal. [11] investigated the impairment of regenerative func­tions in diabetic mice by extracellular adenosine (eAdo), and further explored therapeutic avenues that combat the effects of eAdo. The authors of the study conducted bulk RNA-seq on two distinct groups of muscle satellite cell samples. The bulk transcriptomic studies uncovered the inhibition of the ENTs-ADK-AMPK signaling axis through blocking of either ENTs (equilibrative nucleoside transporters) or ADK (adenosine kinase) as potential therapeutic targets in eAdo­compromised muscle stem cells. Exploring a different thera­peutic approach, Li et al. [35] studied the therapeutic potential of miRNA-loaded engineered exosomes released from silk broin patch targeting IRAK1 in mice. The miR146a-loaded exosomes successfully inhibited the NF-κB
signaling pathway invitro by targeting IRAK1 and thereby reducing inammation. In vivo, the treatment exhibited wound repair, anti-inammatory, collagen deposition, and neovascularization properties.
Combining biological engineering with natural proper­ties, Deng etal. [12] studied the therapeutic potential of a biological adhesive developed from snail mucus on diabetic rats. The snail mucus-inspired treatment was shown to exhibit superior tissue adhesion properties, in addition to promoting healing, epithelial regeneration, and angiogene­sis, while reducing inammation. In addition to the upregu­lation of known key genes for wound healing revascularization like Vegfb, Tgfb1, Fgf3, and Col7a1, the authors observed pathways related to wound healing and organ regeneration being upregulated in the A. fulica d-SMG treated samples.
As shown in the example studies above, bulk RNA-seq has proven to be an invaluable tool in the eld of diabetic wound healing research, providing signicant insights into the underlying mechanisms of this complex process. Bulk transcriptomic analyses have enabled researchers to charac­terize the diabetic wound immune microenvironment and potential therapeutic avenues, including treatment with pri­mary cells, secretomes, compounds, or whole devices. Through these analyses, key genes and pathways have been identied, leading to signicant breakthroughs in the eld. However, this modality is not able to capture the heterogene­ity of cell populations within wounds and the cellular inter­actions involved in the healing process, avenues that have been recently introduced by single-cell (sc) and spatial tran­scriptomic methods.
Preclinical Animal andHuman Models inWound Healing Single-Cell RNA-Seq Studies
Single-cell methods are powerful modalities to explore cell type heterogeneity and the complicated interplay in wound healing [18]. These methods allow for unprecedented gran­ularity in RNA-seq analysis and can elucidate the ner­grained aspects of wound healing in skin, such as the multitude of cell states that are involved and might be tran­sitory or induced after wounding [37]. In this section, we will summarize some of the recent single-cell studies in wound healing that aim to analyze the heterogeneity of cell populations within wounds and have identied unique gene expression patterns associated with specic cell popula­tions (Table11.4), shedding light on both the intricate biol­ogy of wound healing and uncovering potential therapeutic targets.
A large part of the recent scRNA-seq studies focuses on understanding cell type heterogeneity during different phases of wound healing, aiming to clarify the mechanistic differ-
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Table 11.4 In vivo animal and human single-cell RNA sequencing studies related to wound healing
Cell type/tissue
Skin Mus
Skin dermal cells Mus
Neonatal skin Mus
Skin Mus
Antler and back skin Reindeer scRNA-seq and
Skin Mus
Skin epidermal cells Mus
Telogen epidermal cells Mus
Skin epidermal cells Mus
Skin immune cells/bone marrow and PBMCs Mus
Skin epidermal cells Mus
Skin Homo
Foot skin, forearm skin, and PBMCs Homo
Animal/ human model Modality/platform Outcome References
Musculus
Musculus
Musculus
Musculus
Musculus
Musculus
Musculus
Musculus
Musculus
Musculus
sapiens
sapiens
scRNA-seq Studied wound broblast heterogeneity and proposed a
scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq
scRNA-seq (10× Genomics)
scRNA-seq (10× Genomics)
scATAC-seq (10× Genomics)
scRNA-seq (10× Genomics)
scRNA-seq (Fluidigm C1)
scRNA-seq (Fluidigm C1)
scRNA-seq (10× Genomics)
scRNA-seq and ow cytometry
scRNA-seq Revealed that aged mouse skin during wounding
scRNA-seq (10× Genomics)
scRNA-seq (10× Genomics)
myeloid-derived broblast subset contributing to adipocyte regeneration
Characterized the diversity and plasticity of dermal broblasts during homeostasis and wound healing and highlighted broblast regenerative capacity
Characterized neonatal papillary broblasts that might migrate from the wound periphery to the center during re-epithelialization and can promote healthy skin regeneration in young skin
Aimed to study semi-regenerative and brotic WIHN wounds post- wounding. Characterized increased macrophage inltration and Wnt activity in chronic inammatory skin conditions
Discovered that uninjured velvet broblasts resemble human fetal broblasts, which are known to mediate scarless wound healing, whereas uninjured back broblasts express inammatory mediators, associated with brotic wound healing in both human and rodent skin
Dened sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway as key regulator of cell growth and differentiation and highly involved in WIHN during wound healing
Genetically labeled Lgr5- and Lgr6-expressing cells from the hair follicle bulge and interfollicular epidermis and monitored their individual transcriptional proles during wound healing
Characterized specic interfollicular and follicular epidermal compartments, assigned cells on an axis from basal to suprabasal layers and proximal to distal regions of the hair follicles and highlighted how cellular heterogeneity can be orchestrated invivo to assure tissue homeostasis
Proposed a revised “hierarchical-lineage” model of homeostasis by capturing the epidermal basal cellular dynamics in wound healing
Dened that the Angptl4 deciency reduces monocyte­derived macrophages and substantially prolongs the inammatory phase of wound healing
exhibits a more inammatory phenotype, higher proportions of neutrophils, Arg1 high macrophages which potentially communicate with broblasts using the IL1 axis possibly contributing to the delayed healing observed in aged skin
Characterized secretory-papillary, secretory-reticular, pro-inammatory and mesenchymal broblasts along with their activity in normal scar, keloid and scleroderma human skin samples
Characterized the transcriptional proles in patients that were either healthy, suffered from diabetes, or had diabetes and diabetic foot ulcers (healers and non-healers). Identied a rare broblast population in healers, higher abundance in M1 macrophages and lower M2 anti- inammatory macrophages
Y. H. Pita-Juarez et al.
Guerrero- Juarez etal. [38]
Abbasi etal. [39]
Phan etal. [40]
Gay etal. [41]
Sinha etal. [42]
Lim etal. [43]
Joost etal. [44]
Joost etal. [45]
Haensel etal. [46]
Wee etal. [47]
Vu etal. [48]
Deng etal. [49]
Theocharidis etal. [50]
ences between a wound that becomes brotic and highly inammatory or one that heads for complete regeneration [18]. Several of these studies focus on broblast diversity in dermal and epidermal tissues, and key cell subpopulations crucial for the tissue regeneration during wound healing. For instance, Guerrero-Juarez et al. [38] studied wound bro-
blast diversity and heterogeneity by pooling wound tissue from the skin of 12 mice and performed scRNA-seq on their post-wounding tissues. Twelve broblast subpopulations were identied, most composing a contractile phenotype, while others appeared as distinct broblast lineages through pseudotime and RNA velocity analysis. Of special interest
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was a subset of broblasts that expressed hematopoietic markers, suggesting myeloid origin, which was later vali­dated using single-cell western blot, Cre recombinase-based lineage tracing, and full-length scRNA-seq of genetically modied myobroblasts. The study pointed out the large het­erogeneity among broblasts during wound healing and the existence of myeloid-derived broblast subsets that contrib­ute to adipocyte regeneration.
Likewise, Abbasi et al. [39] aimed to characterize the diversity and plasticity of dermal broblasts during homeo­stasis and wound healing. The authors used a mouse model of skin injury that can result in scar formation or regenera­tion and performed scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq on 12days post-wounding tissues. scATAC-seq is a technique enabling the identication of accessible chromatin regions in the pro­moters of genes. In tandem with scRNA-seq, it is a powerful assay for the discovery of key transcription factors regulating the cellular phenotypes and transcriptional programs [51]. They observed that hair follicle mesenchymal progenitors, stem cells that reside in the hair follicle niche, contribute minimally to wound repair. In contrast, extrafollicular pro­genitor cells were highly expressing Hic1, a quiescence­associated marker gene and produced most of the regenerative broblasts, as well as exhibited distinct functional heteroge­neity depending on their location within the wound. Specically, they observed that progenitors located in the center of the wound tend to acquire mesenchymal regenera­tive competence, supporting skin and hair follicle regenera­tion, while peripheral ones promote scar formation. Using scATAC-seq, the authors also identied changes in chroma­tin accessibility within this specic regeneration-related locus and further investigated broblast regenerative capac­ity. By integrating scRNA-seq with scATAC-seq, they assessed how distinct transcriptional, regulatory, and epigen­etic proles controlling the acquisition of those mesenchy­mal regenerative properties, including the Wnt, BMP, and TGF beta pathways. They subsequently focused on Runx1, a transcription factor that regulates cell differentiation and migration and retinoic acid signaling, dening it as a key fac­tor that enhances mesenchymal regenerative competence, while they orthogonally validated their ndings using inhibi­tion with pharmacological agents, as well as a knockout of Hic1 gene.
Focusing on hair follicles, Phan etal. [40] studied wound­induced hair follicle (WIHN) neogenesis. In WIHN, hair fol­licles are formed mainly during large wounds and not during small wounds. The authors performed scRNA-seq in murine skin to compare the molecular proles of small scarring wounds versus larger regenerative wounds and dene cell types that promote healthy skin regeneration. A specic sub­set of neonatal papillary broblasts, termed upper wound
broblasts, was identied, upregulating Lef1, and was highly enriched in regenerative wounds. These cells also expressed the retinoic binding protein Crabp1 and resembled papillary broblasts, which are known to support hair follicle forma­tion and maintenance. RNA velocity analysis was applied along with an integrated pathway analysis to not only place these broblast subsets across an inferred differentiation tra­jectory, but also to characterize the active pathways in each one. The authors specically identied that upper wound broblasts were closely associated with dermal papilla cells, terminally differentiated broblasts that reside at the base of hair follicles, and suggested a model where papillary bro­blasts might migrate from the wound periphery to the center during re-epithelialization.
Similarly, Gay etal. [41] aimed to study semi- regenerative and brotic WIHN wounds at different post-wounding mice skin tissues and characterize the WIHN-induced regenera­tive repair response. The authors performed scRNA-seq in mice WIHN+ and WIHN− dermal cells. They identied that macrophages can inuence wound healing fate by modulat­ing Wnt signaling. Notably, in brotic wounds, macrophages expressed higher levels of genes involved in phagocytosis and degradation than in semi-regenerative wounds, while myobroblasts, cells that can produce scar tissue, were more abundant. The authors also reported and validated a key fac­tor for wound regeneration, Sfrp4, a Wnt inhibitor protein, highly expressed in the dermis of semi-regenerative wounds compared to brotic wounds.
In a subsequent re-analysis of this study, Chen etal. [37] found that myobroblasts and macrophages were the core cell subpopulations that were controlling key pathways such as proliferation, cell migration, and TGF beta through ligand­receptor interactions and reconstructed the dynamics of myobroblasts and macrophages using trajectory pseudo­time inference. The authors provided a model for these cell population potential underlying evolution and budding func­tional heterogeneity. In a second integrative analysis using publicly available datasets, Phan et al. [43] compared the function of upper and papillary wound broblasts. The authors focused on RNA velocity analysis and showed that upper wound broblasts resided on a different developmen­tal pseudotime trajectory than lower wound broblasts with a higher differentiation from terminally differentiated into dermal papilla, reconciling previous inconsistencies between lineage tracing and scRNA-seq data.
In an elegant study that sought to investigate the interac­tion between scarring and hair follicle regeneration, Lim etal. [43] aimed to determine whether scarring could pro­mote wound healing with hair follicle regeneration and with­out brotic repair, highlighting yet another important cell type involved in the wound healing process. The authors
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Y. H. Pita-Juarez et al.
applied scRNA in mouse skin to specically examine sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling, a pathway that regulates cell growth and differentiation, and its involvement in WIHN during mouse skin wound healing. They utilized different genetic tools to manipulate Shh signaling and nd that Shh has distinct roles in different broblast subpopulation func­tions. In reticular broblasts, which normally reside in the deeper layers of the dermis, Shh promoted the initial phase of wound repair, modulating angiogenesis and proliferation. In papillary broblasts, usually in the supercial layer of the dermis, Shh is essential to induce hair follicle neogenesis (HFN) in the healing wound, as suggested by the high expression of Gli1, a TF mediator of hedgehog signaling.
Stem cells (SCs) are also being actively studied in wound­healing research [52, 53] and regenerative medicine [54]. For instance, Joost etal. [44] aimed to investigate SCs in skin epithelium and their response and adaptation to wound heal­ing in mice. The authors focused on SCs that expressed Lgr5 or Lg6, genes that regulate the Wnt signaling pathway. Lgr5- expressing SCs are located in the hair follicle bulge, and Lgr6-expressing SCs are found in the interfollicular epider­mis and can migrate to different locations, as well as differ­entiate into several cell types. Using scRNA-seq and genetically labeled cells, they collected wounded and unwounded skin from mice at different time points and found that Lgr5 and Lgr6 progeny induced a gene expression sig­nature related to inammation, proliferation, migration, and extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling, expressing several different receptors that allowed them to interact with the wound environment such as EGF, FGF, PDGF, and IL-6. They also observed a transition of the Lgr5 progeny to assume an interfollicular epidermis identity, revealing that the two populations were differentially primed for response to wounding.
Joost etal. [45] isolated and assayed cells from the telo­gen epidermis of adult mice to study how cellular heteroge­neity is tuned at the transcriptional level. The authors identied 25 distinct cell populations and assigned each of them to a specic interfollicular and follicular epidermal compartment based on their gene expression proles. Using computational reconstruction methods, they assigned cells on an axis from basal to suprabasal layers and proximal to distal regions of the hair follicles and showed that transcrip­tional heterogeneity of the epidermis can be explained in large part by these two axes of differentiation and spatial localization. They also highlighted a specic gene module that denes basal-epidermal identity in stem cell populations and reects their niche-specic functions based on their localization.
Subsequently, in a relevant study, Haensel et al. [46] aimed to characterize the epidermal basal cellular dynamics during differentiation in wound healing. The authors per­formed scRNA-seq in unwounded mouse back skin and 4days post-wounding, corresponding to a stage of active re­epithelization. They focused on four distinct (non-) prolifer­ative basal cell states whose expression was signicantly changed during wound healing, highly heterogeneous in their molecular proles, including differences in genes related to inammation, migration, quiescence, cell cycle arrest, and cell differentiation. Specically, they character­ized (1) a Col17a1Hi cell population presenting a “quiescence and stemness” signature, highly expressing Col17a1 and Trp63, a marker usually highly expressed in epidermal stem cells, as well as a marker gene enriched in quiescent bulge hair follicle stem cells (Bu-HFSCs), (2) an early-response subpopulation upregulating immediate early genes and genes related to Bu-HFSCs or with known function in regulating proliferation, (3) a growth-arrested cell type, highly inam­matory, upregulating genes related to TNF-a signaling, hypoxia, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, as well as genes associated with cell cycle arrest and (4) a high pro­liferative cell population, substantially different in metabolic preference. During wound re-epithelialization, these cell states become spatially partitioned, as identied by RNA in situ using RNAscope and uorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM). The authors nally proposed a “hierar­chical lineage” of homeostasis, driven by these cell states, delineated through trajectory and velocity analysis, suggest­ing that post-wounding, skin epidermal cells are more active, with increased plasticity and relaxed differentiation com­pared to the unwounded cells.
Inammatory response at the wound site is a key factor in non-healing wounds [55, 56] . Wee et al. [47] studied the immune component in the wound site that delays the transi­tion from the inammatory to the wound healing phase. The authors focused on skin immune cells isolated from bone marrow and Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) and performed scRNA-seq to resolve their role during wound healing. They revealed a novel role for Angiopoietin-like 4 protein (Angptl4), a protein that regulates monocyte differen­tiation through an interferon-mediated axis, and more spe­cically, interferon-activated gene 202B (i202b). Utilizing a combination of ow cytometry and scRNA-seq, they deeply characterized the immune cell landscape of exci­sional wounds from wild-type and Angptl4 knockout mice. They showed that Angptl4 deciency does not affect the recruitment of immune cells but instead reduces monocyte­derived macrophages and substantially prolongs the inam-
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matory phase of wound healing. With a kinase inhibitor screen, they identied several kinases that mediate Angptl4 signaling and i202b expression, such as JAK and CDK, and orthogonally validate their ndings with an invitro reconsti­tuted wound microenvironment, silencing i20b expression in knockout mice, leading to impaired monocyte differentiation.
Finally, Vu et al. [48] aimed to uncover systems-level alterations in its cellular composition and cell-cell communi­cation during wound healing. The authors specically com­pared skin from adult and aged mice by performing scRNA-seq to capture the epithelial, broblast, and immune cell types and their respective heterogeneity in young versus aged skin during homeostasis. Their study revealed that aged mouse skin during wounding exhibits a more inammatory phenotype, featuring higher proportions of neutrophils, as well as Arg1 high macrophages, which potentially communi­cate with broblasts using the IL1 axis. Concurrently, bro­blasts were reduced in aged skin, and found widespread alterations in ECM-related gene expression, possibly con­tributing to the delayed healing observed in aged skin. One promising candidate gene that assists in wound healing through broblast activation in humans and identied in this study was Ccl19. This study also highlights another powerful analysis unlocked by single-cell wound healing, the interro­gation of cell-cell interactions at the single-cell level.
Moving away from murine investigations, Sinha et al. [41] proposed a wound healing investigation at the single cell level in another animal model, the reindeer, to examine how antler skin (velvet) and back skin differ in wound heal­ing and to identify how broblasts can inuence wound heal­ing outcomes. The authors, by integrating scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq, compared the gene expression, chromatin accessibility, and protein abundance proles of different cell types in uninjured and injured velvet, as well as back skin. They discovered that uninjured velvet broblasts resembled human fetal broblasts, which are known to mediate scarless wound healing, whereas uninjured back broblasts expressed inammatory mediators associated with brotic wound heal­ing in both human and rodent skin. Injury elicited site­specic immune responses, with back skin broblasts recruiting more myeloid cells, in comparison to velvet skin broblasts, which adopted an immunosuppressive pheno­type, restricting leukocyte recruitment while hastening immune resolution using distinct expression and epigenetic programs, regulating cytokines, chemokines, and their recep­tors. Using ectopic transplantation of broblasts to scar­forming back skin, they showed that while there is initial regeneration post wounding, velvet broblasts progressively
transition to a brotic phenotype, similar to a fetal to the adult transition of broblasts reported in humans.
Apart from animal models, several wound healing studies on human tissues have been performed recently. One of the rst was by Deng etal. [49], who aimed to characterize bro­blast populations in the normal scar, keloid, and scleroderma human skin samples. The researchers identied four large broblast subsets, dened by their gene expression proles, separated into secretory-papillary, secretory-reticular, pro­inammatory, and mesenchymal broblasts. Pro­inammatory cells characterized by high expression of genes related to migration, invasion, and ECM, signicantly increased in keloid and scleroderma compared to normal scars. In addition, the pro-inammatory broblasts, charac­terized by high cytokine production and robust immune response, signicantly increased in scleroderma compared to normal scar, as well as keloid. To validate the role of the mesenchymal broblasts, the authors used uorescence­activated cell sorting (FACS) to isolate them based on expres­sions and co-cultured them with normal scar broblasts, discovering that the mesenchymal broblasts induced colla­gen overexpression in normal scar broblasts and performed lentivirus-mediated knockdowns of key genes in important mechanisms aiming to reduce the collagen overexpression. Likewise, more recently, Theocharidis et al. [50] aimed to characterize the transcriptional proles in patients that were either healthy, suffered from diabetes, or had diabetes and diabetic foot ulcer patients, splitting the latter category into healers and non-healers. The authors performed scRNA-seq to assay foot skin, forearm skin, or PBMCs. By creating this diabetic wound healing cell atlas enabled them to compare the cells from patients whose ulcers had healed and those with chronic wounds, and identied a unique broblast sub­population, termed healing broblasts, which upregulated genes involved in matrix degradation, hypoxia response, and inammation. They also identied a higher abundance of M1 macrophages, which were more inammatory and promoted wound healing, while non-healers had higher M2 macro­phages, which were anti-inammatory in diabetic healer patients.
In summary, single-cell RNA sequencing studies have already been embraced in skin and wound healing research in particular, allowing researchers to closely examine several aspects of tissue, such as cell type diversity and heterogene­ity, identifying rare cell types post-wounding with a critical role in tissue regeneration, as well as characterizing complex cell-cell communication interactions post-wounding. However, these studies had largely overlooked the spatial organization of cells within the wound microenvironment.
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For example, a key limitation of cell-cell communication analysis in single-cell RNA-seq is that since the cells’ spatial information is lost, many pathways might be inferred by algorithms that are in cells who are not physically proximal. The integration of the recently introduced spatial tissue pro­ling, and especially spatial transcriptomic assays, offers valuable insights into this missing dimension, providing a crucial understanding of the spatial organization of cells within the wound microenvironment and signicantly enhancing our comprehension of wound healing processes.
Spatial Transcriptomics inWound Healing
Spatial transcriptomics is a new avenue for wound healing research and offers a promising approach by providing a detailed understanding of tissue morphology and spatial orga­nization. Even though it’s a new research modality, ST has started being increasingly utilized to support cutting- edge wound healing research. The very rst ST studies in both human and animal models have focused on understanding the cellular interactions involved in the wound-healing process, identifying potential therapeutic targets, and developing strat­egies for promoting tissue regeneration. By utilizing spatial transcriptomics, researchers aimed to analyze the gene expression patterns of various cell types within the wound microenvironment, providing insights into the complex cel­lular interactions involved in the healing process [1, 23].
Theocharidis etal. [50] showed enrichment of a unique population of broblasts overexpressing MMP1, MMP3, MMP11, HIF1A, CHI3L1, and TNFAIP6 and increased M1 macrophage polarization in the diabetic foot ulcer patients with healing wounds. The authors used the Nanostring GeoMx DSP ST platform to spatially characterize the tran­scriptome of wound healing tissue samples and discovered preferential localization of these healing-associated bro­blasts toward the wound as opposed to the wound edge or unwounded skin. Co-localization with CD68+/CD80+ M1 macrophages was also observed in healers, whereas broblasts enriched in non-healers co-localized with M2 macrophages which were CD163+. The study sheds light on the wound healing microenvironment, identifying cell types that may be important in promoting DFU healing and informing potential therapeutic approaches for DFU treatment.
ST has also been utilized to investigate wound healing in mice. Foster etal. [57] employed multi-omics to comprehen-
sively study the cells involved in wound healing across time and space, using a stented wound model that aims to reca­pitulate human tissue repair kinetics in mice. To characterize broblast subpopulations during the physiologic response to injury and their spatial location, the authors combined scRNA-seq, scATAC-seq, and ST 10× Genomics Visium data. This platform enables the capture of whole transcrip­tome information at 55 um resolution. Through this multi­modal scRNAseq and ST investigation, they discovered four broblast subpopulations with distinct functions during the wound healing progress: migratory broblasts that move to the wound site, proliferative broblasts that drive expansion, contractile broblasts that contribute to wound closure, and ECM-producing broblasts that deposit scar tissue. They identied several transcription factors and signaling path­ways controlling broblast fate during wound healing, including Tcf4, Cebpd, Tgfb1, and the Wnt pathway. They proposed a dynamic model where broblasts adapt to tissue disruption and provided new insights into tissue repair and brosis.
Spatial transcriptomic techniques are poised to revolu­tionize wound healing research by revealing the complex processes of tissue repair and regeneration. These studies enhance our understanding of intricate cellular interactions and hold tremendous potential for advancing our knowledge and treatment options in wound healing.
scRNA-Seq andSpatial Omics Analysis: Description oftheResearch Pipelines Adopted inWound Healing Studies
Following tissue pre-processing and the application of the scRNA-seq or ST assay, the major bottleneck is data analysis and derivation of biological information. In this section, we will present a step-by-step overview for the analysis of scRNA-seq and spatial transcriptomic datasets (Figs. 11.3 and 11.4) and we will focus on the specic workows adopted in wound healing studies. We hope that this section will familiarize the readers with the processes involved and the specic aims of each key task, without going into techni­cal details. This information could be used to evaluate how studies have been performed and whether all technical con­siderations have been taken into account or as a guide for future studies. We also highlight key challenges and aspects that are central for the successful utilization of such experiments.
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Fig. 11.3 Overview of best-practices for single-cell transcriptomic analysis (scRNA-seq). (a) Upon raw data processing, a count matrix of cells by genes is obtained per sample, which is then subjected to quality control. Ambient RNA removal, doublet detection, and empty droplet removal are subsequently performed. Low-quality cells are removed during the quality control step, by ltering outliers with respect to the read depth of the library, the number of counts and number of genes per barcode, and the mitochondrial content. Normalization and feature selection are performed accordingly, while dimensionality reduction and batch correction methods are applied to facilitate visualization, reduce computational costs, and decrease the effect of noise. (b) Following the aforementioned adjustments, the corrected expression space undergoes clustering to enable the biological grouping of cells with similar expression proles. Cluster annotation is carried out, either
by following automatic annotation approaches or by manually annotat­ing the cluster based on prior knowledge of cell-type markers. Cell fate is also studied by performing trajectory inference analyses, which in turn can inform about cellular diversity. (c) Further processing can be carried out to answer specic biological questions, where appropriate. For example, differential expression analysis can reveal upregulated or downregulated genes in the data set, gene set enrichment analysis can uncover pathway-wide effects, whereas compositional analysis can bring to light differential cell-type compositions between groups. In more advanced settings, perturbation modeling allows for the study of induced perturbations, cell-cell communication inference analysis can unveil interactions between annotated cell-types, and gene regulatory networks can also be established
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Fig. 11.4 Spatial transcriptomics analysis workow. (a) Depending on the assay, the raw data processing step varies. For in situ capture sequencing, raw sequencing data are processed into count matrices con­sisting of genes and capture spots. Fluorescence in situ hybridization, on the other hand, entails converting uorescent imaging signals into similar count matrices. The count matrices are preprocessed to obtain quality control metrics such as distributions of UMIs per spot (counts per spot) and genes per spot, as well as data normalization. Dimensionality reduction methods include summarization and visual­ization methods (e.g., PCA, UMAP), both of which seek to reduce gene
expression data into fewer dimensions for more informative analysis. (b) Similar spot transcriptomes are grouped together through cluster­ing, and these transcriptomes can then be superimposed over the origi­nal tissue images for broad interpretation. (c) Mapping and deconvolution combine scRNA-seq data with spatial transcriptomics data to locate cell subpopulations. Deconvolution is typically used to infer cell-type proportions per capture spot from an annotated scRNA­seq data set. (d) The cell type maps generated via mapping and decon­volution can be used to perform ligand-receptor analyses. The proximity of cell types can aid in determining cell-cell communication events
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Analysis ofscRNA-Seq Experiments
The section will cover several steps of the analysis, including data pre-processing, feature selection, data integration, and dimensionality reduction. We will present clustering approaches to dene cell subpopulations and tools for cell- type character­ization. Part of the functional analysis will also be presented, including cell type proportional differences among the distinct cell populations, pseudotime inference, identication of impor­tant signaling pathways of the different cell types, and charac­terization of important cell-cell communication interactions often described in wound healing studies (Fig.11.3).
quality cells and genes and to correct for technical biases (Fig.11.3a). Low-quality cells may have high levels of mito­chondrial RNA, low gene expression levels, or low complex­ity, which is measured as the number of genes they are expressing. Another important consideration is the possible need for decontamination of the data, in case there is sub­stantial ambient RNA present (RNA not belonging to a cell). This might be due to debris leading to wrong cell counting, cells that are lysed during library preparation or extensive degradation. These issues can be addressed computationally using decontamination methods, which aim to denoise expression coming from empty droplets by modeling it out using Bayesian methods [58], or deep generative modeling [59]. Another technical issue that can arise in single-cell
From Raw Data toHigh-Quality Cellular Proles: Pre-processing andSample Integration
RNA-sequencing is multiplets, where two or more cells can get trapped in the same gel beads in emulsion (GEM). These can be delineated using their expression [60, 61] and are often referred to as cell doublets or multiplets.
Pre-processing involves data, quality control, normalization, and ltering of the raw scRNA-seq counts to remove low-
A critical step in scRNA-seq analysis is sample integra­tion and dimensionality reduction (Fig.11.3a). The rst step
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includes correcting for technical batch effects that may arise from differences in sample preparation or sequencing proto­cols [62]. Batch effect correction can be applied either to the gene expression level, (methods such as, e.g., ComBat-seq [63], RUV [64], and Seurat's integration pipeline [65], or in embedding space [62]. In dimensionality reduction, the aim is the representation of the high-dimensional gene expres­sion data (thousands of gene expression measurements) through a lower dimensional representation (e.g., two dimen­sions to enable easy review and visual inspection) using methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), t- distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE), and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection for Dimension Reduction (UMAP). Dimensionality reduction facilitates the visualization and clustering of cells based on their gene expression proles.
From Clusters toCell Identities: Cell-Type Annotation at Single-Cell Resolution
Cell-type annotation at single-cell resolution is one of the most important critical steps in scRNA-seq analysis. It refers to the identication and annotation of the different cell types present in a heterogeneous population of cells based on their gene expression proles at the single-cell level and can pro­vide insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying cel­lular processes and disease states (Fig. 11.3b). Cell-type annotation can be performed using various methods, including marker genes, machine-learning, and reference­based annotation approaches.
Reference datasets, i.e. gene expression cell proles which can be utilized to identify and annotate unknown cells, can be obtained from publicly available databases, such as the Human Cell Atlas [66], or can be generated using scRNA­seq data from known cell types, publicly available or in­house generated. Prominent examples of tools aiming to automatically annotate cells based solely on their transcrip­tomes and reference cell information are scANVI [67], SingleR [68], Celltypist [69], onClass [70], Symphony [71] and singleCellNet [72].
Functional Downstream Analysis: Revealing Mechanisms
Pseudotime inference and RNA velocity have been broadly studied for cellular differentiation and cell state transitions during wound healing [38]. Trajectory analysis can be used to identify intermediate states or transitional cell types along developmental pathways and to infer the regulatory mecha­nisms that drive cellular differentiation (Fig.11.3b). Several methods have been developed in the past few years, includ-
ing Monocle [7375], Slingshot [76], and CellRank [77]. These approaches can identify branch points and intermedi­ate cell types along developmental trajectories and can be used to visualize the expression of genes over time. Complementing this information, RNA velocity can infer the direction and speed of gene expression changes in individual cells over time. RNA velocity can be used to predict future cell states and to identify intermediate states or transitional cell types along developmental trajectories. Tools like Velocyto [78] and scVelo [79] are two of the most broadly used that utilize spliced and unspliced read counts from single- cell RNA sequencing data to estimate the velocity of gene expression changes in individual cells.
Other steps of analysis, including ligand-receptor cell-cell communication analysis, co-expression analysis, and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), are also critical for the identication and characterization of signaling pathways and interactions between cells in complex biological systems (Fig.11.3c). Ligand-receptor analysis can be used to identify putative ligand-receptor pairs between different cell types, providing insights into potential signaling pathways and cel­lular interactions. Several tools are available for ligand­receptor analysis, including CellPhoneDB [80], nicheNET [81], and cellChat [82]. On the other end, co-expression analysis can be used to identify groups of genes that are co­expressed across different cell types, providing insights into potential signaling pathways and cellular interactions [83]. Relevant tools dedicated to co-expression analysis are WGCNA [84] and Monocle [73, 75]. Finally, gene set enrich- ment and pathway analyses can be used to identify signaling pathways and cellular functions that are enriched in specic cell types or subpopulations, providing insights into poten­tial signaling pathways and cellular interactions. Gene set enrichment analysis can be performed using tools such as GSEA [85] and clusterProler [86].
Analysis ofSpatial Transcriptomics
Spatial transcriptomics analysis follows similar principles for single-cell RNA-seq analysis. In general, the analysis can be divided in two major phases: preprocessing and down­stream analysis (Fig.11.4).
Preprocessing
The objective of preprocessing is to ensure that high-quality data are available for downstream analysis, with the goal to discover the biological implications of the data. Preprocessing involves a number of steps, such as dimensionality reduc­tion, normalization, and quality control (Fig.11.4a). Quality control is paramount to obtaining actionable results from