Integrative analysis of the human brain mural cell transcriptome

Abstract

Brain mural cells, including pericytes and vascular smooth muscle cells, are important for vascular development, blood-brain barrier function, and neurovascular coupling, but the molecular characteristics of human brain mural cells are incompletely characterized. Single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) is increasingly being applied to assess cellular diversity in the human brain, but the scarcity of mural cells in whole brain samples has limited their molecular profiling. Here, we leverage the combined power of multiple independent human brain scRNA-seq datasets to build a transcriptomic database of human brain mural cells. We use this combined dataset to determine human-mouse species differences in mural cell transcriptomes, culture-induced dedifferentiation of human brain pericytes, and human mural cell organotypicity, with several key findings validated by RNA fluorescence <i>in situ</i> hybridization. Together, this work improves knowledge regarding the molecular constituents of human brain mural cells, serves as a resource for hypothesis generation in understanding brain mural cell function, and will facilitate comparative evaluation of animal and <i>in vitro</i> models.