Title
Single-cell transcriptomics and epigenomics unravel the role of monocytes in neuroblastoma bone marrow metastasis
Author
Irfete S. Fetahu
St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute
Author
Wolfgang Esser-Skala
Department of Biosciences and Medical Biology, University of Salzburg
Author
Rohit Dnyansagar
Department of Biosciences and Medical Biology, University of Salzburg
... show all
Abstract
Metastasis is the major cause of cancer-related deaths. Neuroblastoma (NB), a childhood tumor has been molecularly defined at the primary cancer site, however, the bone marrow (BM) as the metastatic niche of NB is poorly characterized. Here we perform single-cell transcriptomic and epigenomic profiling of BM aspirates from 11 subjects spanning three major NB subtypes and compare these to five age-matched and metastasis-free BM, followed by in-depth single cell analyses of tissue diversity and cell-cell interactions, as well as functional validation. We show that cellular plasticity of NB tumor cells is conserved upon metastasis and tumor cell type composition is NB subtype-dependent. NB cells signal to the BM microenvironment, rewiring via macrophage mgration inhibitory factor and midkine signaling specifically monocytes, which exhibit M1 and M2 features, are marked by activation of pro- and anti-inflammatory programs, and express tumor-promoting factors, reminiscent of tumor-associated macrophages. The interactions and pathways characterized in our study provide the basis for therapeutic approaches that target tumor-to-microenvironment interactions.
Keywords
Cancer geneticsCancer microenvironmentChromatin structureEpigeneticsTranscriptomics
Object type
Language
English [eng]
Persistent identifier
https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:2065102
Appeared in
Title
Nature Communications
Volume
14
ISSN
2041-1723
Issued
2023
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date issued
2023
Access rights
Rights statement
© The Author(s) 2023
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