Randomized trial examines gene expression in bronchial cells of children with asthma post-rhinovirus infection, indicating key insights into asthma pathology.
Key Points
This research aims to characterize bronchial epithelial cells (BECs) in children with asthma, particularly in type 2 vs non-type 2 forms, and how rhinovirus infection affects them.
BECs were collected from children with (n=14) and without (n=5) asthma and differentiated at air-liquid interface for 21 days.
Rhinovirus (RV-A16, MOI 0.5) was used to infect BECs, which were analyzed via single-cell RNA sequencing before and after infection.
Leiden clustering identified cell clusters based on established gene signatures and transcriptomic differences were assessed post-infection.
Identified 11 distinct cell clusters with transcriptomic differences ranging from 50-2825 differentially expressed genes among populations pre- and post-infection (FDR<0.01).
Non-type 2 asthma BECs showed upregulation in pathways associated with ER stress, apoptosis, and TNF alpha signaling post-infection (FDR<0.01).
Contrastingly, downregulation of genes related to interferon signaling was observed in non-T2 asthma ciliated and goblet cells after infection (FDR<0.01).