Transcriptome profiling of in vitro cellular entities involved in lung tumour fusion events

Cell fusion theory for explaining metastasis origin has been hypothesised for almost one-hundred years, mainly availed with data coming from patients who received a bone marrow transplant and all had tumour cells with DNA from their cancer-free donors. In fact, colonisation of distant organs by an original tumour could be explained with the acquisition of hallmarks from both immune and tumour parents. Here, we systematically conducted in vitro fusions between CD14+human monocytes and GFP+H60 lung tumour cells. Transcriptome analysis of naïve monocytes, and sorted GFP+, CD14+ and CD14+GFP+ cells showed the latter sharing common pathways with both parental types, which sustain their in vivo metastatic characteristics, such as mobility and invasiveness. Altogether, our data demonstrates that differentially genes profile acquisition by hybrids enables them to drive metastasis. RNA-seq in biological replicates of four days in vitro fusions between human PBMC derived monocytes and GFP+CSC-H460 tumour cell line.