A longitudinal single-cell therapeutic atlas of anti-tumour necrosis factor treatment in inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract Precision medicine in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) requires an understanding of how cellular networks change following therapy. We describe a therapeutic atlas for Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) following anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF) therapy. We generated ~1 million single-cell transcriptomes, organised into 109 cell states, from 216 gut biopsies from 38 patients and three controls, revealing disease- and therapy-specific differences. A systems-biology analysis identified distinct spatially-resolved cellular microenvironments: granuloma signatures in CD and interferon (IFN)-response signatures localising to T-cell aggregates and epithelial damage in CD and UC. Longitudinal comparisons demonstrated that disease progression in non-responders associated with myeloid and stromal cell perturbations in CD and increased multi-cellular IFN signalling in UC. IFN signalling was also observed in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) synovium with a lymphoid pathotype. Our therapeutic atlas informs drug positioning across IMIDs, and suggests a rationale for the use of janus kinase (JAK) inhibition following anti-TNF resistance.