Deciphering immune cell heterogeneity in vascular diseases: Insights from single-cell sequencing

The complexity and diversity of vascular diseases highlight the urgent need to study their pathogenesis, particularly the key role of immune cell-mediated inflammatory responses in their development. While previous reviews have outlined the involvement of immune cells in vascular pathology, a comprehensive understanding of their dynamic changes, functional states, and intercellular interactions remains incomplete. Recent advances in single-cell sequencing (SCS) have provided unprecedented insights into immune cell heterogeneity, enabling the identification of novel subpopulations and their roles in disease progression.This review extends prior work by systematically summarizing the latest applications of SCS in vascular diseases, highlighting newly discovered immune cell subsets, their interactions, and their impact on vascular pathology. By addressing current gaps in the literature-such as the functional plasticity of immune cells and their temporal dynamics-this review offers new perspectives on immune-mediated mechanisms in vascular diseases and proposes novel therapeutic strategies for their prevention and treatment.