Targeting branched-chain amino acids alleviates pulmonary fibrosis [scRNA-seq]

Knockdown of BCAT2 significantly promoted COL1A1 expression in response to TGF-β1 treatment. However, the roles of BCAT2 on other cell types, changes in cellular states, and cellular interactions are currently unknown.

Here, we used single-cell RNA sequencing to analysis healthy mouse lungs (WT_PBS), mouse lungs with bleomycin-induced fibrosis (WT_BLM), and heterozygous BCAT2+/− (BCAT2 Het) mouse lungs treated with BLM (Het_BLM). Notably, we observed a reduced number of epithelial cells in the BCAT2 Het mice (Figure 3M and S3L). In contrast, the fibroblast and macrophage populations were significantly increased in the BCAT2 Het mice compared to WT mice after bleomycin-induced lung injury.