Cycling cancer persisters arise from lineages with distinct transcriptional and metabolic programs
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ABSTRACT: Non-genetic mechanisms have recently emerged as important drivers of therapy failure in cancer, where some cancer cells can enter a reversible drug-tolerant persister state in response to treatment. While most cancer persisters, like their bacterial counterparts, remain arrested in the presence of drug, a rare subset of cancer persisters can re-enter the cell cycle under constitutive drug treatment. Little is known about the non-genetic mechanisms that enable cancer persisters to simultaneously resist therapy and maintain proliferative capacity in the presence of drug. To address this, we developed Watermelon, a new high-complexity expressed barcode lentiviral library for simultaneous tracing each cell's clonal origin, proliferative state, and transcriptional state, and used it to study this rare, transiently-resistant, proliferative persister population and identify what distinguishes it from non-cycling persisters. Analysis of Watermelon-transduced cancer cell lines demonstrated that cycling and non-cycling persisters arise from different pre-existing cell lineages with distinct transcriptional and metabolic programs. The proliferative capacity of persisters is associated with an upregulation of antioxidant gene programs and a metabolic shift to fatty acid oxidation in specific subpopulations of tumor cells.
ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens
PROVIDER: GSE150949 | GEO | 2020/05/21
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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