Abstract 148: Analysis of the tumor microenvironment in seven cancer types by single-cell RNA-seq

The tumor microenvironment (TME) is composed of tumor cells, as well as immune and stromal cells. Cancer cells can interact with the tumor microenvironment to suppress anticancer immunity and host inflammatory cells can modulate that immune response to the lesion. To better understand the TME across cancer types we used single-cell RNA-seq analysis of 224,330 cells from 77 patients with breast, gastric, nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), pancreatic, colorectal and lung cancer. The tumor cells and immune cells from individual patients were analyzed simultaneously at the single-cell level to identify distinct cell clusters and subtypes. Comparison of the profile of T cells, macrophages, dendritic cells (DC), B cells, mast cells, granulocytes and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) identifies unique profiles by tumor type. Breast tumors have high numbers of macrophages, colorectal tumors are elevated for CD4+-T cells, DLBCLs are low in CAFs, gastric cancers have high levels of mast cells, lung tumors high levels of CD4+-T cells and natural killer (NK) T cells, NPC have elevated levels of B cells and DCs and pancreatic cancers high levels of CAFs and granulocytes and low levels of DC and CD8+-T cells. However, within a tumor type, there is also considerable heterogeneity. Understanding how the TME evolves and changes with therapy or predicts response to treatment and survival may provide insight into tumorigenesis and cancer progression. Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting. Citation Format: Michael Dean, Guibo Li, Jianhua Jin, Yong Hou, Kui Wu, Shida Zhu, Hanlin Zhou, Ruqian Lv, Feng Lin, Si Liu, Shichen Dong, Lei Wang, Cuijuan Zhang, Yi Zhao. Analysis of the tumor microenvironment in seven cancer types by single-cell RNA-seq [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 148.