Lineage tracking reveals dynamic relationships of T cells in colorectal cancer

ABSTRACT: T cells are central players in cancer immunotherapy1, yet some of their fundamental properties such as development and migration within tumours remain elusive. The enormous T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire, required for recognising foreign and self-antigens2,3, could serve as lineage tags to track these T cells in tumours4. Here, we obtained transcriptomes of 11,138 single T cells from 12 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients and developed STARTRAC (Single T-cell Analysis by Rna-seq and Tcr TRACking) indices to quantitatively analyse dynamic relationships among 20 identified T cell subsets with distinct functions and clonalities. While both CD8+ effector and ?exhausted? T cells exhibited high clonal expansion, they were independently connected with tumour-resident CD8+ effector memory cells, implicating a TCR-based fate decision. Of the CD4+ T cells, the majority of tumour-infiltrating Tregs showed clonal exclusivity, whereas certain Treg clones were developmentally linked to multiple TH clones. Notably, we identified two IFNG+ TH1-like clusters in tumours, the GZMK+ TEM and CXCL13+ TH1-like clusters, which were associated with distinct IFN-?-regulating transcription factors, EOMES/RUNX3 and BHLHE40, respectively. Only BHLHE40+ CXCL13+ TH1-like cells were preferentially enriched in tumours of microsatellite-instable (MSI) patients, which might explain their favourable response rates to immune-checkpoint blockade. Furthermore, we found IGFLR1 to be highly expressed in both BHLHE40+CXCL13+ TH1-like and CD8+ exhausted T cells and possessed co-stimulatory functions. Our integrated STARTRAC analyses provided a powerful avenue to comprehensively dissect the T cell properties in CRC, which could shed new insights into the dynamic relationships of T cells in other cancers.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE108989 | GEO | 2018/10/29

REPOSITORIES: GEO