Abstract 121: A Cell Atlas Of The Dahl SS Thoracic Aortic Perivascular Adipose Tissue: Delving Into Single-Cell Data

Abstract

Nearly every blood vessel is surrounded by a layer of fat aptly named perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT). PVAT is an important regulator of vascular tone known largely for its anti-contractile secretions. Recently, however, new PVAT functions have been discovered. These findings include mechanosensing and immune cell regulating capabilities. Further research would be facilitated by the existence of a map of the cells that make up PVAT and showing how they differ from the cells in other types of adipose tissue. Here, we build this map using single-nucleus RNA-sequencing (snRNA-seq) to construct a thoracic aorta PVAT (tPVAT) cell atlas. We then test our hypothesis that cell populations, cell-type proportions, and gene expression patterns differ between tPVAT and brown adipose tissue (BAT). To accomplish this, snRNA-seq was performed on two samples of both tPVAT and BAT that were collected from male Dahl SS rats fed a normal diet. The resulting sequencing files were quality controlled and processed using standard snRNA-seq pipelines. A total of 30,352 and 29,813 nuclei were profiled in tPVAT and BAT respectively. Both tissues were primarily represented by adipocytes, smooth muscle cells, and endothelial cells with a few differences in proportions (Fig. 1). Notably, there is a population of white adipocytes representing 0.3% (89/30352) of nuclei in tPVAT that are absent in BAT. We also find many genes that are differentially expressed in each cell type between the two tissues. This cell atlas provides valuable information to understand the cells that participate in recognized and newly discovered mechanisms of PVAT.