{
  "id": 9176665,
  "title": "Spatial transcriptomics reveals selective vulnerability of cardiac neural crest-derived glial cells in human myocardial infarction",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/22/spatial-transcriptomics-reveals-selective-vulnerability-of-cardiac",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-22T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.14.751638v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Recent studies have identified cardiac neural crest-derived glial cells (CNGs) as essential support cells for cardiac autonomic innervation and maintaining a balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. However, the fate of these cells during myocardial infarction (MI) remains unclear. To investigate this, researchers analyzed 16 spatial transcriptomes from human cardiac tissues, including normal myocardium, infarct zones, border zones, and remote zones.\n\nThe study found that CNGs (S100B+/GFAP+ spots without CD68) were selectively lost along a spatial gradient, moving from healthy tissue towards the infarct core (Spearman rho = -0.92, with a p-value of 4.5 x 10^-7). This loss was confirmed to be significantly greater than overall tissue loss when corrected for tissue area, with only 26% of CNGs retained in the infarct zone compared to normal tissue (p = 0.016). This indicates that CNG loss is a selective vulnerability rather than a result of widespread tissue destruction.\n\nThe researchers also discovered that CNG-positive spots had a positive correlation with oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) activity (partial rho = 0.65, p = 0.009 after controlling for spot composition). This suggests that CNGs have a high metabolic demand, making them particularly sensitive to ischemia. Furthermore, CNG loss correlated with a pyroptosis signature (partial rho = -0.67, p = 0.006), but not with ferroptosis or apoptosis.\n\nThese findings reveal that CNGs are selectively vulnerable components of the cardiac autonomic system in MI, with metabolic failure and pyroptosis as potential mechanisms. The spatially resolved data provide a foundation for future mechanistic and interventional studies focusing on this unique population of glial cells.",
  "summary": "Cardiac neural crest-derived glial cells (CNGs) are recently identified glial cells that support cardiac autonomic innervation and maintain sympathetic-parasympathetic balance. Their fate in myocardial infarction (MI) is unknown. Here, we analyzed 16 human cardiac spatial transcriptomes spanning normal myocardium (n=4), infarct zone (n=5), border zone (inner, n=1; outer, n=3), and remote zone…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}