Abstract
The gingiva is a key oral barrier that protects oral tissues from various stimuli. A loss of gingival tissue homeostasis causes periodontitis, one of the most prevalent inflammatory diseases in humans. The human gingiva exists as a complex cell network comprising specialized structures. To understand the tissue-specific pathophysiology of the gingiva, we applied a recently developed spatial enhanced resolution omics-sequencing (Stereo-seq) technique to obtain a spatial transcriptome (ST) atlas of the gingiva in healthy individuals and periodontitis patients. By utilizing Stereo-seq, we identified the major cell types present in the gingiva, which included epithelial cells, fibroblasts, endothelial cells, and immune cells, as well as subgroups of epithelial cells and immune cells. We further observed that inflammation-related signalling pathways, such as the JAK-STAT and NF-κB signalling pathways, were significantly upregulated in the endothelial cells of the gingiva of periodontitis patients compared with those of healthy individuals. Additionally, we characterized the spatial distribution of periodontitis risk genes in the gingiva and found that the expression of IFI16 was significantly increased in endothelial cells of inflamed gingiva. In conclusion, our Stereo-seq findings may facilitate the development of innovative therapeutic strategies for periodontitis by mapping periodontitis-relevant genes and pathways and effector cells.
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Data availability
The datasets generated in this study have been deposited in the Genome Sequence Archive (GSA) database (http://bigd.big.ac.cn/gsa-human) under accession codes HRA003217. The published datasets used in this study are available under the following accession codes: GSE164241 (human scRNA-seq).
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Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82201011, 82030031, 92149301 and 82270945), the Beijing Municipal Government grant (Beijing Laboratory of Oral Health, PXM2021-014226-000041), the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (2019-I2M-5-038), the Science and Technology Project of Guangzhou, China (202206080009) and the Postdoctoral Foundation of China (2021M703695 and 2021TQ0308).
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Shen, Z., Zhang, R., Huang, Y. et al. The spatial transcriptomic landscape of human gingiva in health and periodontitis. Sci. China Life Sci. 67, 720–732 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2467-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2467-1