Decoupling epithelial-mesenchymal transitions from stromal profiles by integrative expression analysis.

ABSTRACT: Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is the most commonly cited mechanism for cancer metastasis, but it is difficult to distinguish from profiles of normal stromal cells in the tumour microenvironment. In this study we use published single cell RNA-seq data to directly compare mesenchymal signatures from cancer and stromal cells. Informed by these comparisons, we developed a computational framework to decouple these two sources of mesenchymal expression profiles using bulk RNA-seq datasets. This deconvolution offers the opportunity to characterise EMT across hundreds of tumours and examine its association with metastasis and other clinical features. With this approach, we find three distinct patterns of EMT, associated with squamous, gynaecological and gastrointestinal cancer types.

SUBMITTER: Tyler M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8110844 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature