Comprehensive Molecular Characterizations of Gastric Tissue and Gastric Cancer Revealed by Single-cell RNA-seq

Molecular knowledge of normal gastric tissues and gastric cancers remains incomplete. Here, we used single-cell RNA-seq to study the cell diversity of gastric tissues and gastric cancers. The expression landscape of normal gastric cell types and several candidate stem cell markers were obtained. Surprisingly, nearly all cell types in the antrum could transdifferentiate to intestinal metaplasia (IM). We also explored intra-tumoral heterogeneity and identified four common features of gastric cancer. In addition, we classified tumor cells into three major subtypes, which are associated with their prognosis. Finally, the proportions of mesenchymal and endothelial cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME) were negatively correlated with the prognosis of gastric cancer. Therefore, our work provides comprehensive molecular characterizations of both gastric development and gastric cancer at single-cell resolution and has significant potential to inspire better treatment strategies for gastric cancer. Keywords: Expression profiling by high throughput sequencing Here, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis of gastric tissue and gastric cancer.