Single cell RNA-seq of human enthesis from healthy and inflamed tissues

Enthesitis is a characteristic feature of the course of psoriatic arthritis (PsA). To date, most data on enthesitis in PsA have been based on clinical assessment as well as MRI or ultrasound, due to the challenge of obtaining good quality enthesal tissue for molecular analysis. To date, there are no molecular data assessing cell abundance in homeostasis and inflammation at the enthesis site in humans. Therefore, we collected fresh enthesial tissue from cadavers during autopsy and inflamed enthesial tissue from a PsA patient during surgery. Single cell suspensions were obtained by enzymatic dissociation and 3' single cell RNA sequencing was performed on the 10x Genomics platform. Thus, single cell RNA sequencing of these highly specialised tissues may further our understanding of the pathogenesis of PsA.