Origin of kidney papillary tumors from renal progenitors

Purpose: Using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq), Young et al. (Science, 2018, PMID 30093597) recently identified a canonical cancer transcriptome as the possible cell of origin of papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC) that matched a rare proximal convoluted tubular cell population characterized as VCAM1+ SLC17A3+ SLC7A13-, a cell cluster signature defined as PT1. The goal of this study is to compare pRCC transcriptome to human renal progenitor cell (RPC) transcriptome. Methods: To compare the pRCC cells with PT1 features to our RPC population, we analyzed Young pRCC scRNAseq data set together with scRNAseq data obtained from human RPC cultures. Results: The PT1 signature that characterizes the cell of origin of pRCC identifies a RPC cluster. Conclusions: These results suggest that the cell of origin of pRCC corresponds to RPCs. Overall design: Comparison of scRNAseq data from pRCC cells and RPCs. The same RPCs sample was used to create four libraries, each linked to a different 10x Genomics index.