Cell-Type Heterogeneity in Adipose Tissue Is Associated with Complex Traits and Reveals Disease-Relevant Cell-Specific eQTLs.

ABSTRACT: Adipose tissue is an important endocrine organ with a role in many cardiometabolic diseases. It is comprised of a heterogeneous collection of cell types that can differentially impact disease phenotypes. Cellular heterogeneity can also confound -omic analyses but is rarely taken into account in analysis of solid-tissue transcriptomes. Here, we investigate cell-type heterogeneity in two population-level subcutaneous adipose-tissue RNA-seq datasets (TwinsUK, n = 766 and the Genotype-Tissue Expression project [GTEx], n = 326) by estimating the relative proportions of four distinct cell types (adipocytes, macrophages, CD4+ T cells, and micro-vascular endothelial cells). We find significant cellular heterogeneity within and between the TwinsUK and GTEx adipose datasets. We find that adipose cel

SUBMITTER: Glastonbury CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6556877 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature