Autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis

BACKGROUND: Autophagy is an important process that maintains the quality of intracellular proteins and organelles. There is extensive evidence that autophagy has an important role in the lens. Human lens epithelial cells (HLECs) play a key role in the internal homeostasis of the lens. HLEC subtypes...

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Autores principales: Liu, Jiasheng, Zhu, Mengchao, Xu, Yitong, Zhang, Mengdi, Sun, Haisen, Wang, Yaqi, Yang, Qingwen, Li, Jin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10116761/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37081480
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-023-02910-8
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author Liu, Jiasheng
Zhu, Mengchao
Xu, Yitong
Zhang, Mengdi
Sun, Haisen
Wang, Yaqi
Yang, Qingwen
Li, Jin
author_facet Liu, Jiasheng
Zhu, Mengchao
Xu, Yitong
Zhang, Mengdi
Sun, Haisen
Wang, Yaqi
Yang, Qingwen
Li, Jin
author_sort Liu, Jiasheng
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Autophagy is an important process that maintains the quality of intracellular proteins and organelles. There is extensive evidence that autophagy has an important role in the lens. Human lens epithelial cells (HLECs) play a key role in the internal homeostasis of the lens. HLEC subtypes have been identified, but autophagy-prominent cell clusters among HLECs have not been characterized. PURPOSE: To explore the existence of autophagy-prominent cell clusters in HLECs. METHODS: Three donated lenses (HLECs from two whole lenses and HLECs from one lens without the anterior central 6-mm zone) were used for single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). AUCell and AddModuleScore analysis were used to identify potential autophagy-prominent cell clusters. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to confirm the results. RESULTS: High-quality transcripts from 18,120 cells were acquired by scRNA-seq of the two intact lenses. Unsupervised clustering classified the cells into four clusters. AUCell and AddModuleScore analysis revealed cluster 1 is autophagy-prominent. scRNA-seq analysis of HLECs from the lens capsule lacking the central zone confirmed the cluster 1 HLECs was located in the central capsule zone. The TEM result showed that greater autophagy activity was observed in the HLECs in central capsule zone, which further supported the above conclusions based on scRNA-seq analysis that autophagy was prominent in the central zone where the cluster 1 HLECs located. CONCLUSIONS: We identified an autophagy-prominent cell cluster among HLECs and revealed that it was localized in the central zone of the lens capsule. Our findings will aid investigations of autophagy in HLECs and provide insights to guide related research.
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spelling pubmed-101167612023-04-21 Autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis Liu, Jiasheng Zhu, Mengchao Xu, Yitong Zhang, Mengdi Sun, Haisen Wang, Yaqi Yang, Qingwen Li, Jin BMC Ophthalmol Research BACKGROUND: Autophagy is an important process that maintains the quality of intracellular proteins and organelles. There is extensive evidence that autophagy has an important role in the lens. Human lens epithelial cells (HLECs) play a key role in the internal homeostasis of the lens. HLEC subtypes have been identified, but autophagy-prominent cell clusters among HLECs have not been characterized. PURPOSE: To explore the existence of autophagy-prominent cell clusters in HLECs. METHODS: Three donated lenses (HLECs from two whole lenses and HLECs from one lens without the anterior central 6-mm zone) were used for single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). AUCell and AddModuleScore analysis were used to identify potential autophagy-prominent cell clusters. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to confirm the results. RESULTS: High-quality transcripts from 18,120 cells were acquired by scRNA-seq of the two intact lenses. Unsupervised clustering classified the cells into four clusters. AUCell and AddModuleScore analysis revealed cluster 1 is autophagy-prominent. scRNA-seq analysis of HLECs from the lens capsule lacking the central zone confirmed the cluster 1 HLECs was located in the central capsule zone. The TEM result showed that greater autophagy activity was observed in the HLECs in central capsule zone, which further supported the above conclusions based on scRNA-seq analysis that autophagy was prominent in the central zone where the cluster 1 HLECs located. CONCLUSIONS: We identified an autophagy-prominent cell cluster among HLECs and revealed that it was localized in the central zone of the lens capsule. Our findings will aid investigations of autophagy in HLECs and provide insights to guide related research. BioMed Central 2023-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10116761/ /pubmed/37081480 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-023-02910-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Liu, Jiasheng
Zhu, Mengchao
Xu, Yitong
Zhang, Mengdi
Sun, Haisen
Wang, Yaqi
Yang, Qingwen
Li, Jin
Autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis
title Autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis
title_full Autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis
title_fullStr Autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis
title_full_unstemmed Autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis
title_short Autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis
title_sort autophagy-prominent cell clusters among human lens epithelial cells: integrated single-cell rna-sequencing analysis
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10116761/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37081480
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-023-02910-8
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