Telocyte/Fibroblast Contamination
Gene co-expression module in Smooth muscle cells
| Category | Cell contamination |
|---|---|
| Genes | 14 |
| Annotation certainty | 3 of 5 |
| Annotation consistency | 9 of 14 genes have a known function matching the annotation |
Why this annotation
Hub genes are the canonical intestinal subepithelial/telocyte-fibroblast program: LINC01082 and C5orf66-AS1 are lncRNAs specifically marking colonic PDGFRA+ telocytes/S2-S3 fibroblasts, co-expressed with BMP4 and FENDRR (the BMP4-associated lncRNA of the telocyte niche). ADH1B, BCHE, OGN, ABI3BP and HPSE2 are characteristic of colonic interstitial/stromal fibroblast populations rather than of smooth muscle myocytes (which would be marked by DES/ACTG2/MYH11/CNN1 — absent here). The module is strongly coherent yet has very low mean expression (0.081) and detection (5.5%) with uniform distribution across all SMC subsets, the classic signature of ambient RNA/low-level transcript carryover from a neighboring stromal cell lineage rather than a genuine SMC state. MEG3 and KCNIP4 are broadly expressed mesenchymal/lncRNA genes that ride along; CDCA7L and ASB2 are weak peripheral members. In the neighborhood context this module provides the stromal-identity axis that would correlate with ECM/BMP signaling modules, but its lineage-restricted marker set argues for contamination rather than an SMC-intrinsic ECM program.
Genes
ABI3BP, ADH1B, ASB2, BCHE, BMP4, C5orf66-AS1, CDCA7L, FENDRR, HPSE2, KCNIP4, LINC01082, MEG3, OGN, TCIM
Most correlated modules
- BMP-antagonist Niche · correlation 0.53
Module annotations were drafted by a large language model from the module's genes, then reviewed and approved by a domain expert. See sources & licences.