Characterizing CD8+ TEMRA Cells in CP/CPPS Patients: Insights from Targeted Single-Cell Transcriptomic and Functional Investigations

Fei Zhang; Qintao Ge; Jialin Meng; Jia Chen; Chaozhao Liang; Meng Zhang

doi:10.2147/ITT.S451199

Characterizing CD8+ TEMRA Cells in CP/CPPS Patients: Insights from Targeted Single-Cell Transcriptomic and Functional Investigations

Immunotargets Ther. 2024 Feb 26:13:111-121. doi: 10.2147/ITT.S451199. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Fei Zhang^#¹, Qintao Ge^#¹, Jialin Meng¹, Jia Chen¹, Chaozhao Liang¹, Meng Zhang¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University; Institute of Urology, Anhui Medical University; Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Urological and Andrological Diseases Research and Medical Transformation, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230022, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: The specific involvement of the CD8+ T effector memory RA (TEMRA) subset in patients with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) has largely not been explored in the literature.

Methods: Targeted single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) profiles were generated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) obtained from two CP/CPPS patients and two healthy controls (HCs) in our recent study. Pseudotime series algorithms were used to reveal the differentiation trajectory, CellChat analysis was used to explore the communication between individual cells, and the SCENIC program was used to identify potential transcription factors (TFs). Based on the cosine similarity, clusters of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were considered to be further enriched in different pathways. To confirm the functional role of the critical clusters, flow cytometry was employed.

Results: The results revealed the molecular landscape of these clusters, with TEMRA cells exhibiting pronounced cytokine-mediated signaling pathway enrichment. Pseudotime trajectory analysis further mapped the evolution from naïve T cells to that of TEMRA cells, elucidating the developmental pathways involved in the immune context. A significant finding from CellChat analysis was the differential expression of ligands and receptors, with CD8+ TEMRA cells showing enhanced signaling, particularly in the CP/CPPS context, compared to HCs. Flow cytometry confirmed these results, revealing a heightened proinflammatory cytokine profile in patients with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms (CP-LS), suggesting that TEMRA cells play a significant role in disease pathogenesis. TF profiling across the T-cell clusters identified key regulators of cellular identity, identifying novel therapeutic targets. Elevated TNF signaling activity in CD8+ TEMRA cells underscored the involvement of these cells in disease mechanisms.

Conclusion: This study elucidates the pivotal role of the CD8+ TEMRA cell subset in CP/CPPS, which is characterized by increased TNF signaling and proinflammatory factor expression, highlighting potential biomarkers and opening new avenues for therapeutic intervention.

Keywords: CD8+ TEMRA; chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome; periblood memory T-cell; targeted single-cell RNA sequencing.

Grants and funding

This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82170787, 82200860, 82370776), the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (2308085MH247), the Clinical Medical Research Translational Project of Anhui Province (211013672036), the Key Project of Provincial Natural Science Research Project of Anhui Colleges (2022AH051147), the Research Fund of Anhui Institute of Translational Medicine (2017ZHYX02, 2021zhyx-B08, and 2022zhyx-B13), the Scientific Research Funding of Anhui Medical University (2020xkj157), the Postgraduate Innovation and Practice Program of Anhui Medical University (YJS20230025), and the Natural Science Research in Colleges and Universities of Anhui Province (Grant Number: 2022AH051133).