Combining GWAS with scRNAseq to better understand asthma
Sarah Djeddi aims to better understand the genetic and environmental influences on asthma. Our understanding of its genetic origins remains limited, with only 47% of risk loci co-localizing with leukocyte T-cells, a known immune system component linked to asthma genetics. To address, under-studied cell types they combined single-cell RNA-seq and GWAS data, focusing on genes overexpressed in specific contexts. In this preprint, she showed how epithelial cells, specifically non-ciliated cells are the ones upregulating asthma-associated genes. These findings could help us better understand the genetic origin of childhood-onset asthma and aid in drug development.
Integrating single cell & spatial transcriptomics
Cells are the basic building blocks of all living organisms. As biologists we are in a continuous endeavor to characterize and unravel how they come together to form and maintain complex tissue structures and organisms. Understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms ruling these systems is critical to understanding how cells communicate, interact, respond to stimuli, and evolve in steady-state and disease conditions (Wagner et al., 2016).