Spatial transcriptomics reveals the heterogeneity and FGG+CRP+ inflammatory cancer-associated fibroblasts replace islets in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Understanding the spatial heterogeneity of the tumor microenvironment (TME) in pancreatic cancer (PC) remains challenging.

Methods

In this study, we performed spatial transcriptomics (ST) to investigate the gene expression features across one normal pancreatic tissue, PC tissue, adjacent tumor tissue, and tumor stroma. We divided 18,075 spatial spots into 22 clusters with t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding based on gene expression profiles. The biological functions and signaling pathways involved in each cluster were analyzed with gene set enrichment analysis.

Results

The results revealed that KRT13+FABP5+ malignant cell subpopulation had keratinization characteristics in the tumor tissue. Fibroblasts from adjacent tumor tissue exhibited a tumor-in

SUBMITTER: Ren Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10140349 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature