Anterior vaginal prolapse, as the most common form of POP, severely affect womens physical and mental health. However, the cellular profiles of vaginal wall and molecular mechanism in pathological process of POP remain unclear. Here, we built the first single-cell transcriptomic atlas of prolapsed vaginal wall. We further revealed prolapse induced aberrant gene expression and transcriptional regulatory networks in cell-type specific manner in POP. Besides extracellular matrix dysregulation, dysfunction of immune cells and immune response were involved with prolapse occur. Computational prediction demonstrated that the abnormal cell-cell communication patterns present among fibroblasts, smooth muscle cells and macrophages in POP, with interplay in extracellular matrix remodeling and regulation of immune reaction. Taken together, our work provides the rst comprehensive single-cell transcriptomic atlas for deciphering gene expression landscapes of heterogeneous cell types in prolapsed anterior vaginal wall, broadens our understanding of cell identities and cell-type-specic gene changes in POP and demonstrated the vital role of enhanced interplay between non-immune cells and immune cells in prolapsed vaginal wall. SOURCE: Bao-Fa Sun (sunbf@big.ac.cn) -  Beijing Institute of Genomics (BIG) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Pluto Bioinformatics

GSE151188: Transcriptomics analysis of gene expression in pelvic organ prolapse and control sample