Single-cell transcriptional analysis of disseminated tumor cell clusters acquired from epithelial ovarian cancer ascites [DTCC]

We used single-cell RT-PCR to analyze the cellular components and the EMT program of disseminated tumor cell clusters acquired from epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) ascites. The disseminated tumor cell clusters of each ascites sample were isolated through 2 approaches: randomly picked up after size-based selection and picked up after classified into 3 biological subpopulations using EpCAM and CD45 antibodies. The disseminated tumor cell clusters were further dissociated into single cells. We used single cell RT-PCR to compare the expression levels of 53-EMT signature genes in different cell types. The data contain 195 intra-cluster single cells from 27 disseminated tumor cell clusters from 4 EOC ascites samples.