Single-cell dissection of the human brain vasculature

Despite the importance of the cerebrovasculature in maintaining normal brain physiology and in understanding neurodegeneration and drug delivery to the central nervous system(1), human cerebrovascular cells remain poorly characterized owing to their sparsity and dispersion. Here we perform single-cell characterization of the human cerebrovasculature using both ex vivo fresh tissue experimental enrichment and post mortem in silico sorting of human cortical tissue samples. We capture 16,681 cerebrovascular nuclei across 11 subtypes, including endothelial cells, mural cells and three distinct subtypes of perivascular fibroblast along the vasculature. We uncover human-specific expression patterns along the arteriovenous axis and determine previously uncharacterized cell-type-specific markers. We use these human-specific signatures to study changes in 3,945 cerebrovascular cells from patients with Huntington's disease, which reveal activation of innate immune signalling in vascular and glial cell types and a concomitant reduction in the levels of proteins critical for maintenance of blood-brain barrier integrity. Finally, our study provides a comprehensive molecular atlas of the human cerebrovasculature to guide future biological and therapeutic studies.

Automated summary

This study characterized the human cerebrovasculature at the single-cell level using experimental enrichment and sorting methods. The researchers identified specific expression patterns and markers for different cell types. They also studied changes in cerebrovascular cells from patients with Huntington's disease, revealing immune signaling activation and decreased blood-brain barrier integrity. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive molecular atlas of the human cerebrovasculature and has important implications for future research and therapy.