综合单细胞和全转录组分析揭示肺动脉高压患者中单核细胞/巨噬细胞衰老相关候选基因

Abstract

BackgroundPulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive vascular disorder characterized by immune dysregulation and vascular remodeling. Cellular senescence modulates immune responses, but its role in PAH, particularly in monocytes/macrophages, remains unclear. Here, we integrated single-cell and bulk transcriptomic data to identify senescence-associated candidate genes associated with monocytes/macrophages in PAH.MethodsPublicly available single-cell RNA-seq data from PAH and control pulmonary vascular tissues were analyzed. A senescence-associated score was calculated for each cell based on MSigDB gene sets. Senescence-associated genes in monocytes/macrophages were identified through correlation and differential expression screening, and further examined in bulk transcriptomic datasets. Bulk transcriptomic discovery used GSE113439, GSE117261, and GSE254617. A sample-title audit identified 68 shared PHBI identifiers between GSE117261 and GSE254617; therefore, the merged data represented 257 expression profiles from 189 unique subjects. LASSO, Random Forest, and XGBoost were used as complementary feature-selection approaches, and genes jointly retained by the three algorithms were defined as candidates for evaluation in independent cohorts.ResultsSingle-cell RNA-seq identified 14 cell types in PAH pulmonary vascular tissues, with dendritic cells, T cells, and monocytes/macrophages exhibiting the highest senescence-associated scores. Integrative screening identified 405 senescence-associated genes enriched in monocytes/macrophages. Multi-algorithm screening prioritized 10 candidate genes for subsequent evaluation. After within-cohort multiple-testing correction, external cohort analyses reproduced the discovery-stage expression directions for RGS1, PHLDA1, MAFB, and RNF13 in lung tissue cohorts, and for MAFB in a PBMC cohort. With nominal P values, RGS1 was significantly upregulated in GSE48149 and GSE53408 (both lung), and PHLDA1 was upregulated in GSE4814