The Characteristics of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells in Takayasu Arteritis by Single Cell RNA Sequencing

Objectives: Takayasu Arteritis (TA) is a rare non-specific vascular inflammation and has deleterious effects on patients’ health. Recent studies have advanced in TA diagnosis and treatment, but the research on the immune cell atlas of peripheral blood is still less. For this purpose, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to analyze the inflammatory cell types and cell markers in TA patients’ Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Methods 4 TA patients and 4 health controls were enrolled in our study from 2019.10 to 2020.5. Their PBMCs samples were collected and performed scRNA-seq. We used Seurat package (v.3.2.2) in R studio (v.3.5.3) for data analysis, and 2 tests were applied for comparing the composition ratio of each cell type by SPSS 20.0. Results CD14+ monocytes, GZMB+ NKT cells, CD56dim CD16+ NK cells, and naive B cells were significantly increased in TA patients as compared to healthy controls and the expression of THBS1, CD163, AREG, IFITM1, TXNIP, and IGHGs was elevated in the peripheral blood of TA patients. Conclusion Except CD4+ T cells, monocytes, NK cells, NKT cells, B cells also play an important role in TA pathogenesis. The elevated markers have different functions in different types of PBMCs, and they can be used as potential diagnostic markers for TA diagnosis.