RNA-seq analysis of Metastatic and Localized human Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

We report the application of single-molecule-based sequencing technology for high-throughput profiling of RNAs in human pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (PNET) tissues. We analyzed the transcriptome maps of primary tumor sites from patients that presented metastasis or not (localized). This analysis revelaed that the immune cell and pathway-related molecular signatures were enriched in metastatic compared to localized tumors. Given the wide change of gene expression in metastatic PNETs, we analyzed the RNA-seq data using a L1000 drug-induced signature to identify pharmacologic agents that might preferentially target metastatic disease. In a separate study, we analyzed our RNA-seq data to understand the molecular basis of sexual dimorphisms in PNETs. We found that PNETs are associated with the emergence of unique sex-specific transcriptomic differences that are not observed in non-neoplastic pancreatic islet tissues. A total of 22 PNET cases were sequenced with 7 from tumors associated with metastasis and 15 localized tumors.