Figure 4 | Scientific Reports

Figure 4

From: African Americans and European Americans exhibit distinct gene expression patterns across tissues and tumors associated with immunologic functions and environmental exposures

Figure 4

Esophageal genes that are differentially expressed in African Americans and European American samples correspond to genes known to be expressed in specific cell types. Genes upregulated in African American versus European American esophagus mapped to two cell lineages with prominent presence in the esophageal tissue stability dataset of the human cell atlas (https://data.humancellatlas.org/). One significant fraction of the African American-upregulated gene signature maps to glandular mucous epithelial cells of esophageal glands (genes marked by red, far right bar). Expression of several of the genes upregulated in African Americans is highly restricted to the mucous epithelial cells (TSAPN8, PRR4, ELAPOR1), whereas FOLR1, for example, is more highly expressed in the ductal epithelial cells of mucosal glands. A second, smaller, signature corresponds to hematolymphoid/myeloid lineage dendritic cells, as shown by CDC1C, PLD4, HERPUD1, and LPXN (genes marked by green, far right bar). In addition the genes that are most strongly expressed by those cell types, additional genes of the AA vs EA esophageal signature included several genes that are essentially exclusively expressed by those cell types. Toppcell-constructed gene modules (http://toppcell.cchmc.org) for each of the cell types reported to be present in the large scRNA-Seq dataset from esophagus37.

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