Single cell RNA sequencing analysis of freshly resected non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) tissues

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths world-wide. ~85% of lung carcinomas are non–small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Tumor cell heterogeneity is very poorly defined. However, it is known to be important for tumor response to cancer therapy and cancer agressivenes. We subjected three NSCLC tumors resected from different patients to Drop-seq in order to 1) elucidate the capability of scRNA-seq analysis in identifying different tumor cell populations; and 2) ascertain the clinical value of the genes which distinguish cancer cells from other cells in the tissue. As anticipated, the tissue composition of independently collected samples varied. Despite deficient populations in some samples, both donor and patient samples contributed to the majority of cell populations. However, cancer cells were all patient-specific. These findings emphasize the utility of single cell gene expression data in identification of tumor cell populations. The collected data might be further used for predicting of drugs specific to the biology of activated pathways and patient outcome. Examining NSCLC tumor cell populations using single cell RNA-seq