Single-Cell Transcriptomic Atlas of Human Hepatic ILCs Reveals the Enrichment of ILC2 in Liver Cancer

Here, we show the scRNA-seq-based analysis of 9 ILC samples sorted by flow cytometry, from blood, healthy livers, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumors, and HCC tumor-adjacent liver tissues. Unbiased transcriptional clustering revealed seven distinct ILC subpopulations in healthy liver and six in liver cancer, among which there were two tissue-resident NK cell subpopulations (CXCR6+CD16+ and CXCR6+CD16-) in healthy liver but only one tissue-resident NK cell subpopulation (CXCR6+CD16-) in tumor tissues. Notably, ILC2s were significantly accumulated in the HCC tissues, and bulk RNA sequencing of SLAMF1+ ILC2s and SLAMF1- ILC2s identified their function. scRNA-seq-based analysis of 9 ILC samples sorted by flow cytometry, 1 from blood, 3 from healthy livers, 4 from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumors, and 1 from HCC tumor-adjacent liver tissues. Bulk RNA sequencing samples including 2 from SLAMF1+ ILC2s and 2 from SLAMF1- ILC2s in HCC tumor sorted by flow cytometry.