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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Disorders : Autoimmune Disorders
Volume 15 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1408880
Immunological characteristics of Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid and Blood across Connective Tissue Disease-associated Interstitial Lung Diseases
Provisionally accepted- 1 Inflammation and Immunology, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan
- 2 Aimed Analytics GmbH, Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
- 3 Department of Respiratory Medicine, Japanese Red Cross Kyoto Daiichi Hospital, Kyoto, Kyōto, Japan
- 4 Center for Rheumatic Disease, Japanese Red Cross Kyoto Daiichi Hospital, Japan, Kyoto, Japan
- 5 Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Kyōto, Japan
- 6 Department of Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Kyōto, Japan
Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a serious complication of connective tissue diseases (CTDs). The heterogeneity of ILDs reflects differences in pathogenesis among diseases. This study aimed to clarify the characteristics of CTD-ILDs via a detailed analysis of the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and blood immune cells. BALF and blood samples were collected from 39 Japanese patients with newly diagnosed ILD: five patients with Sjögren’s syndrome (SS), eight patients with dermatomyositis (DM), six patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), six patients with systemic sclerosis, four patients with anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis, and 10 patients with idiopathic interstitial pneumonia. We performed single-cell RNA sequencing to analyze the gene expression profiles in these patients’ immune cells. In patients with SS, B cells in the BALF were increased and genes associated with the innate and acquired immunity were enriched in both the BALF and blood. In contrast, patients with DM showed an upregulation of genes associated with viral infection in both the BALF and blood. In patients with RA, neutrophils in the BALF tended to increase, and their gene expression patterns changed towards inflammation. These disease-specific characteristics may help us understand the pathogenesis for each disease and discover potential biomarkers.
Keywords: single-cell RNA sequencing, Genetics, Interstitial Lung Disease, Connective tissue disease, systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease
Received: 28 Mar 2024; Accepted: 30 Sep 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Hirano, Sakashita, Fujii, Baßler, Tsuji, Kadoya, Omoto, Hiraoka, Imabayashi, Kaneko, Sofue, Maehara, Seno, Wada, Kohno, Fukuda, Yamada, Takayama and Kawahito. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Wataru Fujii, Inflammation and Immunology, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan
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