Supplementary Material for: Single cell analysis of the fate of injected oncogenic RasV12 cells in adult wild type Drosophila

We have injected dish-cultured oncogenic RasV12 cells into adult male flies and analysed by single cell transcriptomics their destiny within the host after 11 days. We identified in the pre-injection samples and in the 11-day post-injection samples in all 16 clusters of cells, of which 5 disappeared during the experiment in the host. The other cell clusters expanded and expressed genes involved in the regulation of cell cycle, metabolism and development. In addition, three clusters expressed genes related to inflammation and defense. Predominant among these were genes coding for phagocytosis and/or characteristic for plasmatocytes (the fly equivalent of macrophages). A pilot experiment indicated that injection into flies of oncogenic cells in which two of most strongly expressed genes had been previously silenced by RNA interference, resulted in a dramatic reduction of their proliferation in the host flies as compared to controls. As we have shown earlier, the proliferation of the injected oncogenic cells in the adult flies is a hallmark of the disease and induces a wave of transcriptions in the experimental flies. We hypothesise that this results in a bitter dialogue between the injected cells and the host. The experiments presented here should contribute to deciphering this dialogue.