Adventitial fibroblasts direct smooth muscle cell-state transition in pulmonary vascular disease

Goal of the study was to evalaute gene expression changes in donor PASMC upon co-culture with IPAH PAAF (diseased pulmonary artery adventitial fibroblasts) compared to baseline (co-culture with source-matched donor PAAF). PASMC and PAAF were fluorescently labled and co-plated in 1:1 ratio on a 6well plate in fully supplemented SMC growth medium. After 24h co-incubation cells were trypsinized and single cell suspension sorted for PASMC and PAAF respectively. Sorted cells were processed for RNA isolation and subsequent RNA-Seq or real-time PCR determination of gene expression