肿瘤免疫微环境中免疫细胞间通讯景观探究

Deciphering the Landscape of Intercellular Communication Among Immune Cells in Tumor Immune Microenvironment

  • 摘要: 肿瘤免疫微环境(TIME)内细胞间通讯为肿瘤发生发展提供了重要的微环境,但目前单细胞相关研究多关注免疫细胞与肿瘤之间的通讯,对不同免疫细胞间的信号交流研究较少。由此收集11套CD45+细胞的单细胞测序数据,推测出TIME中不同免疫细胞间的信号通讯网络。结果发现,肿瘤样本中免疫细胞间的交流更加频繁与密切,进一步分析得到12条与肿瘤相关的差异信号通讯关系,主要包括各种趋化因子−趋化因子受体信号、白介素−白介素受体信号以及Notch通路信号。这些通讯信号关系及其下游转录因子与肿瘤发生发展密切相关。此外,发现部分关键转录因子与各种肿瘤的预后显著相关。最后,通过构建TIME中不同免疫细胞间存在的细胞间通讯全局景观,挖掘出肿瘤中特异及缺失的免疫细胞间通讯关系,为理解TIME中免疫系统调控及肿瘤发展机制提供了线索,也为肿瘤的临床诊疗研究提供了新的设计思路。

     

    Abstract: The intercellular communication in tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) provides an important niche for tumorigenesis and tumor progression. Most of single cell level studies focus on the crosstalk between tumor cells and immune cells, lacking of research on the intercellular communication among immune cells. Hence, in this study, we collected 11 single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data of CD45+ cells, and deciphered the intercellular communication network among different immune cells in TIME. The results demonstrated that there were significantly more intercellular communications in tumor samples, and 12 differential intercellular communications were detected between tumor and normal samples, including some chemokine -chemokine receptor signaling, interleukin-interleukin-receptor signaling and notch signaling. Most of these signaling and downstream transcription factors (TFs) have been implicated in tumor progression. Survival analysis of some TFs based on the cancer genome altas (TCGA) pan-cancer data indicated that these identified TFs were significantly associated with the overall survival in patients with different cancers. In summary, this study provides a comprehensive view of the intercellular communication landscape among immune cells in TIME, and identifies some specific intercellular communications involved in tumor immunity. We believe that our study provides valuable clues for understanding the mechanisms of tumor progression in TIME and provides possible diagnostic strategies for the tumor diagnosis and treatment.

     

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