Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 3 pp 2747—2763
Single-cell RNA sequencing of immune cells in gastric cancer patients
- 1 Department of General Surgery, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
- 2 Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
- 3 Jiangsu Research Center for Primary Health Development and General Education, Jiangsu Vocational College of Medicine, Yancheng, China
- 4 Department of General Surgery, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- 5 Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
- 6 Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China
- 7 Hepatobiliary/Liver Transplantation Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Key Laboratory of Living Donor Transplantation, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Nanjing, China
Received: November 13, 2019 Accepted: January 12, 2020 Published: February 10, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102774How to Cite
Abstract
Cancer immunotherapy has achieved positive clinical responses in the treatment of various cancers, including gastric cancer (GC). In this study, we characterized the heterogeneity of T cells isolated from GC patients at the single-cell level using single-cell RNA sequencing. We identified different immune cell subtypes and their heterogeneous transcription factors and depicted their developmental trajectories. In particular, we focused on exhausted CD8+ cells and Tregs and discovered that, as compared to control, the IRF8 transcription factor was downregulated in CD8+ tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) from GC tissues, and that GC patients with lower IRF8 levels in blood CD8+ T cells tended to be a at a more advanced disease stage. These findings provide a theoretical basis for targeted immune therapy in GC.