Figure 4.

Dermal fibroblast subclusters exhibit distinct functionalities in control versus scleroderma. (A) UMAP plot of 9192 cells identified as fibroblasts from skin biopsies of ten control patients (n = 10) and twelve scleroderma patients with diffuse cutaneous disease (n = 12). Six subclusters were obtained (FB1-FB6). (B) Stacked bar charts showing the proportion of each cell type in control versus scleroderma skin combined (left) and individually (right) for each patient. (C) Dot plot of marker genes for each cluster according to the classification system by Ascensión, et al. [7]. Colour intensity implies level of expression and dot size indicates the percentage of the cluster expressing the gene (blue = control; red = scleroderma). (D) Dot plot of differentially expressed marker genes for each cluster when comparing between subclusters and between control and scleroderma. Colour intensity implies level of expression and dot size indicates the percentage of the cluster expressing the gene (blue = control; red = scleroderma). (E,F) Results of pathway enrichment analysis for gene ontology (GO) and the Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) shown as dot plots for control (E) and scleroderma (F). Colour intensity indicates higher significance. Larger dot size indicates a higher gene ratio. For FB6_SSc, no KEGG pathways were enriched (F).