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International Journal of Frontiers in Medicine, 2023, 5(10); doi: 10.25236/IJFM.2023.051013.

Dissecting heterogeneity and immune cell populations in non-small cell lung cancer by single-cell RNA sequencing

Author(s)

Tao Yu1, Xuehan Gao2, Jueyi Zhou3, Liping Zhao3, Jihong Feng3

Corresponding Author:
Jihong Feng
Affiliation(s)

1Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, People's Hospital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hohhot, China

2Department of Immunology, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China

3Department of Oncology, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Lishui People's Hospital, Lishui, China

Abstract

Lung cancer is the most common and aggressive cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) being the most common type. However, the issue of tumor heterogeneity in non-small cell lung cancer has received increasing attention and is not currently addressed at single-cell resolution. In this study, integrated single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) samples from Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) samples and paracancerous control samples were downloaded from the high-throughput Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) data and batch RNA-seq data for analysis. Three NSCLC cell subsets in different differentiation states were compared and analyzed. GSEA-GO analysis predicts the biological functions and pathways of differentiation-related genes. The sequencing results of a total of 4320 cells from 11 NSCLC samples and 5 paracancerous lung tissue samples were obtained from the GEO database. After data standardization and data filtering, all cells were subjected to unsupervised clustering to obtain 3 different clusters, which were visualized after dimensionality reduction through T-SNE, and 10 differential marker genes were analyzed and screened, which can be clustered in different clusters. Gene set enrichment analysis found that CDRG was significantly associated with immune regulation and immune response, and 278 NSCLC cell differentiation-related genes (CDRG) were identified. Our study identified NSCLC cells with distinct differentiation characteristics based on single-cell sequencing data from GEO, emphasizing the important role of cell differentiation in predicting the clinical outcome of NSCLC patients and their potential response to immunotherapy.

Keywords

Non-small cell lung cancer, tumor heterogeneity, immune prognosis, single-cell sequencing, GEO database, GSEA analysis

Cite This Paper

Tao Yu, Xuehan Gao, Jueyi Zhou, Liping Zhao, Jihong Feng. Dissecting heterogeneity and immune cell populations in non-small cell lung cancer by single-cell RNA sequencing. International Journal of Frontiers in Medicine (2023), Vol. 5, Issue 10: 81-87. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFM.2023.051013.

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