Drug tolerant persisters in erlotinib treated EGFR-mutated lung adenocarcinoma arise from pre-existing tumor cells and survive in an adapted stromal microenvironment [RNA-seq]

Targeted therapies require life-long treatment, as drug discontinuation invariably leads to tumor recurrence. Recurrence is thought to mainly be driven by minor subpopulations of drug tolerant persister (DTP) cells that survive the cytotoxic drug effect. In lung cancer, DTP studies have mainly been conducted using tumor cell line models. single Cell RNAseq was performed on Baseline(BL) and DTP tumor