Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Mechanical stretch regulates inflammatory signaling in human smooth muscle cells
doi: 10.1101/2025.10.29.685276
Figure Lengend Snippet: A. Outline of the experiment. Human aortic SMCs were exposed to static conditions (24 h), mechanical stretch (10%, 6h) or TNF stimulation (10 ng/mL, 24h). Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) visualization of the phenotypic diversity of SMCs after static culture, stretch and TNF stimulation. Each dot represents a single cell. Nine cell clusters were identified in human aortic SMCs (0.3 resolution) as follows: C0 (fibromyocyte SMCs), C1 (inflammatory SMCs), C2 (proliferative M-phase), C3 (intermediate SMCs), C4 (proliferative S-phase), C5 (proliferative M-S-phase), C6 (contractile SMCs), C7 (apoptotic SMCs), C8 (endothelial-like SMCs). B. Dot plot showing the expression of three genes defining each cell cluster shown in A. Color scale indicates log2 expression, and the size represents the percentage of cells. C. Integration of publicly available human coronary and carotid atherosclerotic plaques scRNA-seq datasets – with human aortic SMCs from this study. This analysis revealed 7 mesenchymal cell clusters (pC0 to pC6). The p stands for plaque. Analysis of human aortic SMCs in culture are shown in the background (light grey cluster). D. Human aortic SMCs (C0 to C8) are shown in front and human atherosclerotic cell populations are shown in the background (light grey clusters).
Article Snippet: Human aortic SMCs (ATCC, PCS-100-012, male donor) were authenticated by ATCC and tested negative for mycoplasma contamination prior to experiments.
Techniques: Expressing