Single-cell Transcriptomic Analysis Reveals Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Trait Molecular Heterogeneity and guides EMT-targeted trial in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is one of the most prevalent and fatal malignant diseases. Epithelial mesenchymal transition promotes ESCC development and is the important culprit for ESCC metastasis. In this study, we integrated and analyzed high resolution single cell transcriptomes data, including 209231 ESCC cells from 39 tumor and 16 adjacent samples derived from 44 individuals at different clinical stages, identifying cell populations with EMT heterogeneity. We identified EMT characteristic molecules, and typed ESCC according to this EMT gene set, and found that EMT mostly occurs in tumor at the early stage before lymph node metastasis, and promoted the rapid deterioration of ESCC. By predicting the drugs targeting ESCC EMT and combining with experimental verification, it was found that dactolisib, docetaxel and nutlin could be used to inhibit EMT in ESCC, thereby inhibiting ESCC metastasis. In this study, scRNAseq, RNAseq, and TCGA data were combined with experiments to map the full cycle landscape of EMT during ESCC development and metastasis, providing a new reference for improving ESCC clinical treatment strategies.