Single-cell profile of atrial human fibroblasts in cardiac arrhythmia atrial fibrillation (AF) - SmartSeq2

Atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common cardiac arrhythmia, is a major contributor to population mortality and morbidity. The goal of this study is to explore molecular mechanisms of the AF-induced profibrotic remodelling in human atrial fibroblasts (ACFs). Specifically, we assessed single-cell transcriptome of cultured human ACFs treated with calcitonin(CT) or vehicle (from 6 individual patients) and of freshly-isolated ACFs from patients with AF (4 individual patients) vs controls (4 individual patients) (SR). We found that ACF transcriptome was unaltered by CT in cultured ACFs, and identified 5 transcriptional clusters with 23 differentially expressed transcripts in AF in freshly-ioslated ACFs. Overall design: mRNA profile of cultured (6 biological replicates conducted in single technical replicates) and freshly-isolated (8 biological replicates conducted in single technical replicates) human ACFs.