Reprogramming of Tumor-infiltrating Immune Cells in Early Stage of NSCLC

Comparing the relative proportions of immune cells in tumor and adjacent normal tissue from NSCLC patients demonstrates the early changes of tumor immunity and provides insights to guide immunotherapy design. We mapped the immune ecosystem using computational deconvolution of bulk transcriptome data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data of dissociated tumors from early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to investigate early immune landscape changes occurring during tumorigenesis. Computational deconvolution of immune infiltrates in 44 NSCLC and matching adjacent normal samples from TCGA showed heterogeneous patterns of alterations in immune cells. The scRNA-seq analyses of 11,485 cells from 4 treatment-naïve NSCLC patients comparing tumor to adjacent normal tissues showed diverse changes of immune cell compositions. Notably, CD8+ T cells and NK cells are present at low levels in adjacent normal tissues, and are further decreased within tumors. Myeloid cells exhibited marked dynamic reprogramming activities, which were delineated with differentiation paths through trajectory analysis. A common differentiation path from CD14+ monocytes to M2 macrophages was identified among the 4 cases, accompanied by up-regulated genes (e.g. ALCAM/CD166, CD59, IL13RA1, IL7R) with enriched functions (adipogenesis, lysosome), and down-regulated genes (e.g. CXCL2, IL1B, IL6R) with enriched functions (TNFa signaling via NF-kB, inflammatory response). Computational deconvolution and single cell sequencing analyses have revealed a highly dynamic immune reprogramming that occurs in early stage NSCLC development, suggesting that normalizing both immune compartments may represent a viable strategy for treatment of early stage cancer and prevention of progression. Overall design: Map the immune ecosystem using computational deconvolution of bulk transcriptome data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data of dissociated tumors from from early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to investigate early immune landscape changes occurring during tumorigenesis

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Song Q, Hawkins GA, Wudel L, Chou PC, Forbes E, Pullikuth AK, Liu L, Jin G, Craddock L, Topaloglu U, Kucera G, O'Neill S, Levine EA, Sun P, Watabe K, Lu Y, Alexander-Miller MA, Pasche B, Miller LD, Zhang W