Abstract:Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a cholestatic liver disease characterized by the destruction of the small and medium bile ducts. Its pathogenesis is still unknown. Despite the genome wide association study findings, the therapies targeting the cytokines pathway, tested so far, have failed. The concept of the biliary epithelium as a key player of the PBC pathogenesis has emerged over the last few years. It is now well accepted that the biliary epithelial cells (BECs) actively participate to the genesis of … Show more
“…5 d and Additional file 2 : Table S10). These results are consistent with previous evidence that an immune-mediated injury of cholangiocytes contributes risk to PBC [ 30 , 31 ]. Fig.…”
Background
Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune disease, which is highly influenced by genetic determinants. Many genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have reported that numerous genetic loci were significantly associated with PBC susceptibility. However, the effects of genetic determinants on liver cells and its immune microenvironment for PBC remain unclear.
Results
We constructed a powerful computational framework to integrate GWAS summary statistics with scRNA-seq data to uncover genetics-modulated liver cell subpopulations for PBC. Based on our multi-omics integrative analysis, 29 risk genes including ORMDL3, GSNK2B, and DDAH2 were significantly associated with PBC susceptibility. By combining GWAS summary statistics with scRNA-seq data, we found that cholangiocytes exhibited a notable enrichment by PBC-related genetic association signals (Permuted P < 0.05). The risk gene of ORMDL3 showed the highest expression proportion in cholangiocytes than other liver cells (22.38%). The ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes have prominently higher metabolism activity score than ORMDL3− cholangiocytes (P = 1.38 × 10–15). Compared with ORMDL3− cholangiocytes, there were 77 significantly differentially expressed genes among ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes (FDR < 0.05), and these significant genes were associated with autoimmune diseases-related functional terms or pathways. The ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes exhibited relatively high communications with macrophage and monocyte. Compared with ORMDL3− cholangiocytes, the VEGF signaling pathway is specific for ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes to interact with other cell populations.
Conclusions
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to integrate genetic information with single cell sequencing data for parsing genetics-influenced liver cells for PBC risk. We identified that ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes with higher metabolism activity play important immune-modulatory roles in the etiology of PBC.
Graphical Abstract
“…5 d and Additional file 2 : Table S10). These results are consistent with previous evidence that an immune-mediated injury of cholangiocytes contributes risk to PBC [ 30 , 31 ]. Fig.…”
Background
Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune disease, which is highly influenced by genetic determinants. Many genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have reported that numerous genetic loci were significantly associated with PBC susceptibility. However, the effects of genetic determinants on liver cells and its immune microenvironment for PBC remain unclear.
Results
We constructed a powerful computational framework to integrate GWAS summary statistics with scRNA-seq data to uncover genetics-modulated liver cell subpopulations for PBC. Based on our multi-omics integrative analysis, 29 risk genes including ORMDL3, GSNK2B, and DDAH2 were significantly associated with PBC susceptibility. By combining GWAS summary statistics with scRNA-seq data, we found that cholangiocytes exhibited a notable enrichment by PBC-related genetic association signals (Permuted P < 0.05). The risk gene of ORMDL3 showed the highest expression proportion in cholangiocytes than other liver cells (22.38%). The ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes have prominently higher metabolism activity score than ORMDL3− cholangiocytes (P = 1.38 × 10–15). Compared with ORMDL3− cholangiocytes, there were 77 significantly differentially expressed genes among ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes (FDR < 0.05), and these significant genes were associated with autoimmune diseases-related functional terms or pathways. The ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes exhibited relatively high communications with macrophage and monocyte. Compared with ORMDL3− cholangiocytes, the VEGF signaling pathway is specific for ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes to interact with other cell populations.
Conclusions
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to integrate genetic information with single cell sequencing data for parsing genetics-influenced liver cells for PBC risk. We identified that ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes with higher metabolism activity play important immune-modulatory roles in the etiology of PBC.
Graphical Abstract
“…We found that cholangiocytes showed a notable enrichment by PBC-relevant genetic association signals (Permuted P < 0.05, Figure 3b and Supplemental Table S10). These results are consistent with previous evidence that an immune-mediated injury of cholangiocytes contributes risk to PBC 44,45 .…”
Many genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have reported that numerous genetic loci were significantly associated with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC). However, the effects of genetic determinants on liver cells and its immune microenvironment for PBC remain unclear. We constructed a powerful computational framework to integrate a large-scale GWAS summary statistics (N = 13,239) with scRNA-seq data to uncover genetics-modulated liver cell subpopulations for PBC. We found that 29 genes including ORMDL3, GSNK2B, and DDAH2 were significantly associated with PBC susceptibility. Gene-property analysis revealed that four immune cell types including Cst3+ dendritic cell, Chil3+ macrophage, Trbc2+ T cell, and Gzma+ T cell were significantly enriched by PBC-risk genes. By combining GWAS summary statistics with scRNA-seq data, we identified that cholangiocytes exhibited a notable enrichment by PBC-related genetic association signals. The ORMDL3 gene showed the highest expression proportion in cholangiocytes than other liver cells (22.38%). Compared with ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes, we identified that ORMDL3- cholangiocytes predispose to play important immune-modulatory roles in the etiology of PBC. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to integrate human genetic information with single cell sequencing data for parsing genetics-influenced liver cells and its immune microenvironment for PBC risk.
“…We found that cholangiocytes showed a notable enrichment by PBC-relevant genetic association signals (Permuted P < 0.05, Figure 5d and Supplemental Table S10). These results are consistent with previous evidence that an immune-mediated injury of cholangiocytes contributes risk to PBC [30,31].…”
Section: Identification Of Genetically-influenced Liver Cell Subpopulations For Pbcsupporting
Background: Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune disease, which is highly influenced by genetic determinants. Many genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have reported that numerous genetic loci were significantly associated with PBC susceptibility. However, the effects of genetic determinants on liver cells and its immune microenvironment for PBC remain unclear. Results: We constructed a powerful computational framework to integrate GWAS summary statistics with scRNA-seq data to uncover genetics-modulated liver cell subpopulations for PBC. Based on our multi-omics integrative analysis, 29 risk genes including ORMDL3, GSNK2B, and DDAH2 were significantly associated with PBC susceptibility. By combining GWAS summary statistics with scRNA-seq data, we found that cholangiocytes exhibited a notable enrichment by PBC-related genetic association signals (Permuted P < 0.05). The risk gene of ORMDL3 showed the highest expression proportion in cholangiocytes than other liver cells (22.38%). The ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes have prominently higher metabolism activity score than ORMDL3- cholangiocytes (P = 1.383×10-15). Compared with ORMDL3- cholangiocytes, there were 77 significantly differentially expressed genes among ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes (FDR < 0.05), and these significant genes were associated with autoimmune diseases-related functional terms or pathways. The ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes exhibited relatively high communications with macrophage and monocyte. Compared with ORMDL3- cholangiocytes, the VEGF signaling pathway is specific for ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes to interact with other cell populations. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to integrate genetic information with single cell sequencing data for parsing genetics-influenced liver cells for PBC risk. We identified that ORMDL3+ cholangiocytes with higher metabolism activity play important immune-modulatory roles in the etiology of PBC.
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