Plasma extracellular vesicles (EVs) increase during acute myocardial infarction (MI), correlate with myocardial injury, and mobilize immune cells from the spleen to the circulation. These cells are transcriptionally activated even before tissue recruitment, yet the mechanisms driving this priming are unclear. We show that plasma EVs isolated at hospital presentation with MI are enriched in miRNA-320b. Endothelial cells upregulate miRNA-320b in EVs following inflammatory stimulation. Target gene pathway analysis revealed enrichment in adhesion and cytokine signaling. Endothelial EVs promoted monocyte adhesion and induced IL6 and TNF mRNA expression in macrophages while dampening cytokine secretion. RNA-sequencing of MI patient neutrophils and monocytes confirmed significant enrichment of miRNA-320b targets. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells treated with MI plasma EVs showed similar gene regulation. These findings suggest that EV-mediated transfer of miRNA-320b primes immune cells for adhesion and cytokine signaling. Understanding this signaling axis may enable therapeutic immunomodulation of immune cells to improve repair following MI.
New paper with the Akbar Lab @ox.ac.uk: After a heart attack, microRNA-filled vesicles activate immune cells. This triggers inflammation, worsening tissue damage. Targeting these signals may limit injury and improve repair. doi.org/10.1016/j.is... ๐งช๐ซ๐งฌ๐ฅ๏ธ #cardiosky #immunosky @cp-iscience.bsky.social
10.03.2026 14:02
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Thanks, Sheena!
31.07.2025 18:49
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In experiments with mixed immune cells (e.g. from blood), stimulation can induce downstream effects in non-target cells. We compared signalling by ligand-receptor analysis of single cell RNA profiles from 150K immune cells treated with 11 different simulations. The top left panel shows an overall comparison of the signalling interactions within each stimulation condition. The top right panel highlights three distinct groups of stimulations and the signalling specific to them. The bottom panel highlights key interactions from the IFNa and TGFb1 conditions across samples and downstream activity in target cells.
In experiments with mixed immune cells (e.g. from blood), stimulation can induce downstream effects in non-target cells. We compared signalling by ligand-receptor analysis of single cell RNA profiles from 150K immune cells treated with 11 different simulations. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
๐งช๐งฌ๐ฅ๏ธ #immunosky
19.07.2025 21:59
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Thanks, Joan. We didn't have info on donor sex, but were able to infer based on sex-specific gene expression that there was likely 1 female donor. So, the sample was not balanced enough to examine/adjust for sex-associated effects.
14.07.2025 13:39
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We're very happy to share the data, @mdmanurung.bsky.social, and excited to see how others can make use of it!
14.07.2025 10:16
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Intra- and intercellular immune responses across diverse in vitro stimuli and inflammatory disease
In vitro stimulation of healthy human immune cells is commonly used to reproduce the immune states observed in disease, both to understand pathology and to test therapeutic approaches. However, experiments typically focus on individual cell types and stimuli and a comprehensive cellular comparison of common immunomodulators and their relevance to disease is lacking. To this end, we performed integrated single-cell transcriptomic profiling of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells treated with 11 different common in vitro stimuli, totalling over 150,000 cells from 21 immune cell subtypes. Comparative analysis of the immunomodulations revealed their shared and unique pathways, for instance stimulation via the T cell receptor (anti-CD3, CytoStimTM) and IFN-ฮฑ induced broad activation signatures including off-target effects across multiple cell types, whereas TNF-ฮฑ and LPS elicited more specific responses. Ligand-receptor interaction mapping also uncovered the common and distinct intercellular signalling pathways across stimuli. Comparing the stimuli to patient samples enabled identification of specific inflammatory disease features best replicated by each. For example, IFN-ฮฑ stimulation recapitulated signatures of SLE across cell types, whereas LPS induced SLE-like changes specifically within monocytes. Comparative cell-cell network analysis showed that in vitro stimuli were able to recreate some, but not all, aspects of intercellular interactions upregulated in SLE, highlighting the limitations of these model systems. This resource provides new insights into the similarities and differences of established immune stimuli at cellular resolution and facilitates appropriate use of in vitro systems to study pathways relevant to disease. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
๐งฌ Sharing an exciting new pre-print from the team! We stimulated healthy blood cells with 11 different treatments used in immunology research & created single-cell profiles to compare responses. Hopefully an invaluable resource for immunology/disease researchers ๐ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
07.07.2025 13:35
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To help selection of the most appropriate in vitro stimulations to model diseases, we also compared the single cell transcriptome profiles of 150K immune cells treated with 11 different simulations to multiple inflammatory disease gene expression profiles.
The top plots show the similarity between in vitro stimulations of human blood cells, and bulk RNA sequencing profiles of the blood cells from rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus erythematous.
The bottom left plot shows clustering of single cell RNA profiles from systemic lupus erythematous, with the bottom right plot highlighting similarities in simulated immune cells.
We compared the single cell transcriptome profiles of 150K immune cells treated with 11 different simulations to multiple inflammatory disease profiles. This open resource can help in selecting more disease-relevant in vitro conditions for immune cells. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
๐งช๐งฌ๐ฅ๏ธ #immunosky #medsky
06.07.2025 11:52
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Thanks!
06.07.2025 11:31
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ORCID
Hi Monica, I'm a scientist currently in pharmaceuticals with publications across immunology, cardiovascular disease and neuroscience. Please could you add me? Thanks! orcid.org/0000-0003-32...
06.07.2025 03:16
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Stimulating immune cells in vitro is a common experimental lab model. We profiled 150K blood immune cells treated with 11 different stimuli to compare the effects. The data are freely available for researchers. See the preprint for our findings and to access the data ๐งช doi.org/10.1101/2025...
03.07.2025 15:39
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ORCID
Hi Erik please could you add me: orcid.org/0000-0003-32...
03.07.2025 15:31
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Intra- and intercellular immune responses across diverse in vitro stimuli and inflammatory disease https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.27.661918v1
02.07.2025 17:15
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Intra- and intercellular immune responses across diverse in vitro stimuli and inflammatory disease https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.27.661918v1
02.07.2025 17:16
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