Altered perivascular fibroblast activity precedes ALS disease onset.

ABSTRACT: Apart from well-defined factors in neuronal cells¹, only a few reports consider that the variability of sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) progression can depend on less-defined contributions from glia^2,3 and blood vessels⁴. In this study we use an expression-weighted cell-type enrichment method to infer cell activity in spinal cord samples from patients with sporadic ALS and mouse models of this disease. Here we report that patients with sporadic ALS present cell activity patterns consistent with two mouse models in which enrichments of vascular cell genes preceded microglial response. Notably, during the presymptomatic stage, perivascular fibroblast cells showed the strongest gene enrichments, and their marker proteins SPP1 and COL6A1 accumulate

SUBMITTER: Manberg A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7613336 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature