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Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Disease: Single-cell RNA-seq analysis of Immune Responses Post-Myocardial Infarction

Ray, Anindita (2026) MOBN03 20252
Degree Projects in Molecular Biology
Popular Abstract
Immune Responses After a Heart Attack: Why Sex Matters

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide, and myocardial infarction (MI), or “heart attack,” is one of the most common forms of cardiovascular injury. Although MI begins with blocked blood flow and oxygen deprivation in the heart, much of the resulting damage is driven by the immune response that follows. After injury, immune cells migrate to the damaged tissue to remove dead cells and initiate repair. While this inflammatory response is essential for healing, excessive or prolonged inflammation can promote harmful cardiac remodelling and heart failure. Emerging evidence suggests that males and females do not mount identical immune responses after MI, yet... (More)
Immune Responses After a Heart Attack: Why Sex Matters

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide, and myocardial infarction (MI), or “heart attack,” is one of the most common forms of cardiovascular injury. Although MI begins with blocked blood flow and oxygen deprivation in the heart, much of the resulting damage is driven by the immune response that follows. After injury, immune cells migrate to the damaged tissue to remove dead cells and initiate repair. While this inflammatory response is essential for healing, excessive or prolonged inflammation can promote harmful cardiac remodelling and heart failure. Emerging evidence suggests that males and females do not mount identical immune responses after MI, yet the mechanisms underlying these differences remain poorly understood. The post-MI immune response involves diverse immune-cell populations that undergo functional reprogramming within the injured heart, adopting inflammatory or reparatory states depending on local signals. Therefore, understanding sex differences requires studying not only immune-cell composition but also immune-cell function at the molecular level.

To investigate this question, we used single-cell transcriptomics to analyse cardiac immune cells from male and female mice during the acute inflammatory phase following MI. Mouse models are widely used in cardiovascular immunology because they reproduce key features of human post-MI inflammation under controlled experimental conditions.

Our findings showed that although males and females contained similar immune-cell populations after injury, these cells exhibited distinct inflammatory and metabolic states. Male immune populations displayed stronger activation of inflammatory pathways linked to TNF-α, NF-κB signalling, and glycolytic metabolism, whereas female immune populations showed enhanced interferon signalling (IFN-α/γ), oxidative metabolism, and signatures associated with lymphoid activation and adaptive immunity. These findings suggest that biological sex shapes post-MI inflammation primarily through differences in immune-cell activation states rather than major differences in immune-cell abundance, which may contribute to the stronger inflammatory injury and poorer cardiac outcomes often observed in males following MI.

In the future, this knowledge may help advance more personalized approaches in cardiovascular medicine, where therapies are adapted according to the patient’s biological and immunological profile rather than using a one-size-fits-all strategy.


Master’s Degree Project in Molecular Biology 60 credits 2026
Department of Biology, Lund University
Advisor(s): Camila Consiglio¹ & Alexandru Schiopu²
Affiliation(s): ¹ Systems Immunology Lab, Division of Molecular Hematology, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lund University, Lund Stem Cell Center, Lund; ² Cardiac Inflammation Research Group, Department of Translational Medicine, Lund University, Clinical Research Center, Malmö (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Ray, Anindita
supervisor
organization
course
MOBN03 20252
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
language
English
id
9233260
date added to LUP
2026-06-08 15:29:33
date last changed
2026-06-08 15:29:33
@misc{9233260,
  author       = {{Ray, Anindita}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Disease: Single-cell RNA-seq analysis of Immune Responses Post-Myocardial Infarction}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}