Transcriptional heterogeneity in primary and metastatic gastric cancer revealed using single-cell RNA sequencing

Deciphering intra- and inter-tumoral heterogeneity is essential for understanding gastric cancer (GC) biology and identifying effective therapeutic targets. We used single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to reveal the transcriptional heterogeneity of diverse cells within primary and metastatic GC and their roles in disease progression. We performed unbiased scRNA-seq analysis of 42,968 cells from 10 fresh human tissue samples from six patients. Primary tumor and adjacent non-tumoral samples and six metastases from different organs or tissues (liver, peritoneum, ovary, lymph node) were evaluated. Validation experiments were performed using histological assays and bulk transcriptomic datasets.