Emily Charlotte Trimm
MD Student, expected graduation Spring 2025
Ph.D. Student in Biophysics, admitted Autumn 2021
MSTP Student
All Publications
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Vascular endothelial cell development and diversity.
Nature reviews. Cardiology
2022
Abstract
Vascular endothelial cells form the inner layer of blood vessels where they have a key role in the development and maintenance of the functional circulatory system and provide paracrine support to surrounding non-vascular cells. Technical advances in the past 5 years in single-cell genomics and in in vivo genetic labelling have facilitated greater insights into endothelial cell development, plasticity and heterogeneity. These advances have also contributed to a new understanding of the timing of endothelial cell subtype differentiation and its relationship to the cell cycle. Identification of novel tissue-specific gene expression patterns in endothelial cells has led to the discovery of crucial signalling pathways and new interactions with other cell types that have key roles in both tissue maintenance and disease pathology. In this Review, we describe the latest findings in vascular endothelial cell development and diversity, which are often supported by large-scale, single-cell studies, and discuss the implications of these findings for vascular medicine. In addition, we highlight how techniques such as single-cell multimodal omics, which have become increasingly sophisticated over the past 2 years, are being utilized to study normal vascular physiology as well as functional perturbations in disease.
View details for DOI 10.1038/s41569-022-00770-1
View details for PubMedID 36198871
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The Tabula Sapiens: A multiple-organ, single-cell transcriptomic atlas of humans.
Science (New York, N.Y.)
2022; 376 (6594): eabl4896
Abstract
Molecular characterization of cell types using single-cell transcriptome sequencing is revolutionizing cell biology and enabling new insights into the physiology of human organs. We created a human reference atlas comprising nearly 500,000 cells from 24 different tissues and organs, many from the same donor. This atlas enabled molecular characterization of more than 400 cell types, their distribution across tissues, and tissue-specific variation in gene expression. Using multiple tissues from a single donor enabled identification of the clonal distribution of T cells between tissues, identification of the tissue-specific mutation rate in B cells, and analysis of the cell cycle state and proliferative potential of shared cell types across tissues. Cell type-specific RNA splicing was discovered and analyzed across tissues within an individual.
View details for DOI 10.1126/science.abl4896
View details for PubMedID 35549404
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Cell types of origin of the cell-free transcriptome.
Nature biotechnology
2022
Abstract
Cell-free RNA from liquid biopsies can be analyzed to determine disease tissue of origin. We extend this concept to identify cell types of origin using the Tabula Sapiens transcriptomic cell atlas as well as individual tissue transcriptomic cell atlases in combination with the Human Protein Atlas RNA consensus dataset. We define cell type signature scores, which allow the inference of cell types that contribute to cell-free RNA for a variety of diseases.
View details for DOI 10.1038/s41587-021-01188-9
View details for PubMedID 35132263
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RNA splicing programs define tissue compartments and cell types at single-cell resolution
ELIFE
2021; 10
View details for DOI 10.7554/eLife.70692.sa2
View details for Web of Science ID 000715795700001
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Dach1 Extends Artery Networks and Protects Against Cardiac Injury.
Circulation research
2021
Abstract
Rationale: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death worldwide, but there are currently no methods to stimulate artery growth or regeneration in diseased hearts. Studying how arteries are built during development could illuminate strategies for re-building these vessels during ischemic heart disease. We previously found that Dach1 deletion in mouse embryos resulted in small coronary arteries. However, it was not known whether Dach1 gain-of-function would be sufficient to increase arterial vessels and whether this could benefit injury responses. Objective: We investigated how Dach1 overexpression in endothelial cells affected transcription and artery differentiation, and how it influenced recovery from myocardial infarction (MI). Methods and Results: Dach1 was genetically overexpressed in coronary endothelial cells (ECs) in either developing or adult hearts using ApjCreER. This increased the length and number of arterial end branches expanded arteries during development, in both the heart and retina, by inducing capillary ECs to differentiate and contribute to growing arteries. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) of ECs undergoing Dach1-induced arterial specification indicated that it potentiated normal artery differentiation, rather than functioning as a master regulator of artery cell fate. ScRNAseq also showed that normal arterial differentiation is accompanied by repression of lipid metabolism genes, which were also repressed by Dach1. In adults, Dach1 overexpression did not cause a statistically significant change artery structure prior to injury, but increased the number of perfused arteries in the injury zone post-MI. Conclusions: Our data demonstrate that increasing Dach1 is a novel method for driving artery specification and extending arterial branches, which could be explored as a means of mitigating the effects of CAD.
View details for DOI 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.120.318271
View details for PubMedID 34383559