TITLE: “Integrating single cell omics and deep phenotype data to discover genes underlying cardiometabolic disorders”
ABSTRACT: Obesity predisposes to cardiometabolic disorders (CMDs), such as type 2 diabetes, multiple dyslipidemias, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We are interested in how cell-type level gene expression contributes to CMDs and impacts cross talk between cardiometabolic tissues. We hypothesized that obesity-induced inflammatory changes in adipose tissue alter the cell-type composition and key functions of this obesity responsive tissue, which drives ectopic deposition of fat into the liver. To this end, we have generated adipose and liver single nucleus RNA-seq reference data sets, and leveraged the cell-type markers identified in these reference data sets to decompose cell-type proportions in bulk adipose tissue and liver RNA-seq cohorts. This decomposition has allowed us to identify which adipose tissue and liver cell-types are associated with human CMDs. Moving forward, our goal is to discover genetic and biological mechanisms underlying CMDs at the single cell resolution.
