A study on the nature and significance of the early cellular responses as they occur in vivo after tissue injury, is published in Cell Stem Cell from the Team-Relaix

In multicellular organisms, cells dynamically interact with the microenvironment, which determines their properties and gene-expression profile. Tissue damage, such as injury or experimental cell dissociation, leads to dramatic modifications of the niche, yet the early cellular responses in vivo remain ill-defined.

Focusing on two highly regenerative organs, the skeletal muscle and the liver, we identified a common stress response signature across tissues and cell types. This prevalent stress response was also detected in published datasets across tissues, demonstrating high conservation but also indicating a significant degree of data distortion in single-cell reference atlases.

This study was carried out by the PhD students Léo Machado and Perla Geara in the Group of Philippos Mourikis in the Team of Frederic Relaix. The study involved national (Institut Cochin) and international (KU Leuven, Belgium) collaborations. For the work on liver, it relied on the expertise of Fatima Teixeira-Clerc from the team of Jean-Michel Pawlotsky and was supported by a Cross-Team 2020 IMRB funding

Access to the article in Cell Stem Cells of February 19, 2021