Lung endothelial cells regulate pulmonary fibrosis through FOXF1/R-Ras signaling (Human).

Pulmonary fibrosis results from dysregulated repair of damaged tissue caused by persistent injury of lung epithelium. Multiple cell types in the lung are involved in the process of repair. During lung fibrogenesis, normal endothelial cells (EC) are re-programmed into fibrosis-associated EC. Transcriptional factors that control re-programming are poorly understood. Using single cell RNA-sequencing of EC from donor and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) lungs, and lungs from bleomycin-treated mice, we identified endothelial transcription factors (TF) that were differentially expressed during fibrosis. Focusing on one of endothelial TF, FOXF1, we demonstrated that FOXF1 is decreased in EC within human IPF and mouse bleomycin-injured fibrotic lungs. Using the 10x Chromium platform sequencing, transcriptomes of single cells from donor human lung and IPF patient lung were analyzed. ---------------------------------- Authors state "raw data will be submitted to dbGap".