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Updated: Jun 23, 2026
Isolation and Profiling of Human Primary Mesenteric Arterial Endothelial Cells at the Transcriptome Level
Published on: March 14, 2022
Mapping the Cell-Cell Interactions in Cardiovascular Diseases: A Single-Cell Atlas Perspective
Seungyoon Song1, Cherin Lee2, Hun-Jun Park3,4
1Department of Bioinformatics, Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea.
Insights
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) disrupts vital cell-cell communication, leading to heart damage. Understanding these altered signaling pathways offers new therapeutic targets for cardiovascular pathologies.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Biology
- Molecular Medicine
- Systems Biology
Background:
- Cell-cell interactions are crucial for cardiovascular homeostasis.
- Dysregulated communication among heart and vascular cells drives cardiovascular disease (CVD) pathogenesis, including inflammation and fibrosis.
- Recent transcriptomic technologies allow detailed mapping of cellular interactions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review major alterations in intercellular communication across cardiovascular pathologies.
- To highlight the role of disrupted cell crosstalk in cardiomyopathy, myocardial infarction, and heart failure.
- To provide insights into CVD mechanisms and guide targeted therapy development.
Main Methods:
- Systematic inference of intercellular communication using ligand-receptor analysis.
- Construction of detailed cellular atlases of the human heart and vasculature via single-cell and spatial transcriptomics.
- Summarization of disease-specific alterations in key signaling pathways.
Main Results:
- Identification of significant changes in cell-cell communication across various cardiovascular pathologies.
- Uncovering disease-specific alterations in critical signaling pathways.
- Demonstration of how altered crosstalk among vascular, stromal, and immune cells contributes to adverse cardiac remodeling and dysfunction.
Conclusions:
- Disrupted intercellular communication networks are central to cardiovascular disease.
- Understanding these molecular mechanisms offers novel therapeutic strategies for CVD.
- Targeting cell-cell communication pathways holds promise for restoring cardiovascular health.
Abstract:
Cell-cell interactions play a critical role in maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis by coordinating communication among cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, fibroblasts, smooth muscle cells, and immune cells. In cardiovascular disease (CVD), these interactions become dysregulated, driving inflammation, fibrosis, endothelial dysfunction, and adverse remodeling. Recent advances in single-cell and spatial transcriptomics have enabled the construction of detailed cellular atlases of the human heart and vasculature, allowing systematic inference of intercellular communication through ligand-receptor analysis. These efforts have uncovered disease-specific alterations in key signaling pathways. In this review, we summarize the major changes in intercellular communication observed across diverse cardiovascular pathologies. We highlight how altered crosstalk among vascular, stromal, and immune cells contributes to cardiomyopathy, myocardial infarction and heart failure. Understanding these disrupted signaling networks provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms of CVD and may guide the development of targeted therapies aimed at restoring healthy cell-cell communication.
