Transcriptional programming of human epidermis during wound repair and in pressure ulcer at single-cell resolution

Pressure ulcer (PU) is a chronic non-healing wound caused by continuous pressure of the bodyweight to the skin, which is often seen in spinal cord injury patients and in the bedridden elderly population. In spite of high mortality, the pathophysiology of PU remains poorly understood. We performed single-cell transcriptomic analysis of epidermal cells from PU wound-edges, and compared them with epidermal cells from the intact skin and normal acute wounds (AW) of healthy donors. We identified four keratinocyte clusters, one melanocyte cluster, and one immune cell cluster, and the cellular heterogeneity and gene expression were altered in PU. Our findings provided a high-resolution map of human PU and AW, which are likely to yield new areas for exploration of the pathophysiology of chronic wounds and development of wound therapy.

压疮（Pressure Ulcer, PU）是一种因身体重量持续压迫皮肤而引发的慢性难愈合创面，常见于脊髓损伤患者与卧床老年人群。尽管该病症致死率较高，但其病理生理学机制仍未得到充分阐明。本研究对压疮创面边缘的表皮细胞开展了单细胞转录组分析，并将其与健康供者的完整皮肤表皮细胞及正常急性创伤（Acute Wound, AW）表皮细胞进行了对比。我们共鉴定出4个角质形成细胞簇、1个黑素细胞簇以及1个免疫细胞簇，且压疮组的细胞异质性与基因表达均发生了改变。本研究提供的人类压疮与急性创伤高分辨率图谱，有望为慢性创面的病理生理学机制探索及创面治疗手段的开发提供新的研究方向。

搜集汇总

背景与挑战

背景概述

该数据集是一个人类皮肤伤口修复的单细胞转录组研究数据集，专注于压力性溃疡和急性伤口的表皮细胞分析。它包含1170个样本，使用RNA-Seq技术生成，旨在通过比较慢性与急性伤口细胞的异质性和基因表达差异，揭示压力性溃疡的病理机制，为伤口治疗提供新见解。