Dynamics of Cardiac Neutrophil Diversity in Murine Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

Rationale: After myocardial infarction, neutrophils rapidly and massively infiltrate the heart, where they promote both tissue healing and damage.

Objective: To characterize the dynamics of circulating and cardiac neutrophil diversity after infarction.

Methods and results: We employed single-cell transcriptomics combined with cell surface epitope detection by sequencing to investigate temporal neutrophil diversity in the blood and heart after murine myocardial infarction. At day 1, 3, and 5 after infarction, cardiac Ly6G⁺ (lymphocyte antigen 6G) neutrophils could be delineated into 6 distinct clusters with specific time-dependent patterning and proportions. At day 1, neutrophils were characterized by a gene expression profile proximal to bone marrow neutrophils (Cd177, Lcn2, Fpr1), and putative activity of transcriptional regulators involved in hypoxic response (Hif1a) and emergency granulopoiesis (Cebpb). At 3 and 5 days, 2 major subsets of Siglecf^hi (enriched for eg, Icam1 and Tnf) and Siglecf^low (Slpi, Ifitm1) neutrophils were found. Cellular indexing of transcriptomes and epitopes by sequencing (CITE-seq) analysis in blood and heart revealed that while circulating neutrophils undergo a process of aging characterized by loss of surface CD62L and upregulation of Cxcr4, heart infiltrating neutrophils acquired a unique SiglecF^hi signature. SiglecF^hi neutrophils were absent from the bone marrow and spleen, indicating local acquisition of the SiglecF^hi signature. Reducing the influx of blood neutrophils by anti-Ly6G treatment increased proportions of cardiac SiglecF^hi neutrophils, suggesting accumulation of locally aged neutrophils. Computational analysis of ligand/receptor interactions revealed putative pathways mediating neutrophil to macrophage communication in the myocardium. Finally, SiglecF^hi neutrophils were also found in atherosclerotic vessels, revealing that they arise across distinct contexts of cardiovascular inflammation.

Conclusions: Altogether, our data provide a time-resolved census of neutrophil diversity and gene expression dynamics in the mouse blood and ischemic heart at the single-cell level, and reveal a process of local tissue specification of neutrophils in the ischemic heart characterized by the acquisition of a SiglecF^hi signature.

Keywords: inflammation; myocardial infarction; neutrophils.