Identification of Pathways That Drive Myofibroblast Transformation in Hypertrophic Scars

Abstract

Hypertrophic scars (HTS) are a common complication of burn injuries and are characterized by excessive dermal fibrosis driven by the transformation of resident dermal fibroblasts to profibrotic myofibroblasts. Although single cell and bulk RNA transcriptomics analysis of HTS and normal skin tissue samples were performed previously, transcriptomics of the transformation of fibroblasts to myofibroblasts has not been studied. Here, we report the data obtained from RNA sequencing of fibroblasts before and after exposure to transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1) and highlight the pathways that are up- and down-regulated during myofibroblast transformation. Our results suggest increased cellular signalling and rewiring, proliferative surge, immune-like and metabolic reprogramming, and delayed structural remodelling as four groups of events during the transformation of human primary dermal fibroblasts to myofibroblasts.

Keywords

Fibrosis / Hypertrophic scar / Fibroblast / Myofibroblast / Transforming growth factor beta 1 / Skin / Burns

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the patients for donating their tissue for the purposes of this research. The authors thank the staff at Eurofins and Edinburgh Genomics for RNA sequencing and data analysis, respectively.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.R.L. and S.C.; Methodology, A.R.L.; Analysis, M.N., A.R.L., S.K.; Investigation, A.R.L. and K.M.F.; Resources, S.C. and P.D.; Data Curation, A.R.L.; Writing—Original Draft Preparation, S.C.; Writing—Review & Editing, A.R.L., M.N., S.K., K.M.F., P.D., S.C.; Supervision, A.R.L.; Project Administration, A.R.L.; Funding Acquisition, S.C.

Ethics Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the NHS Health Research Authority and NHS East of England—Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee (REC 18/EE/0072 on 11 April 2018), and institutional approval granted from Anglia Ruskin University (FMSFREP/17/18 187 on 24 April 2018).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Full data set is available upon request from the corresponding author.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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