Intertumoral lineage diversity and immunosuppressive transcriptional programs in well-differentiated gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.

Science advances
Authors
Abstract

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are rare cancers that most often arise in the gastrointestinal tract and pancreas. The fundamental mechanisms driving gastroenteropancreatic (GEP)-NET growth remain incompletely elucidated; however, the heterogeneous clinical behavior of GEP-NETs suggests that both cellular lineage dynamics and tumor microenvironment influence tumor pathophysiology. Here, we investigated the single-cell transcriptomes of tumor and immune cells from patients with gastroenteropancreatic NETs. Malignant GEP-NET cells expressed genes and regulons associated with normal, gastrointestinal endocrine cell differentiation, and fate determination stages. Tumor and lymphoid compartments sparsely expressed immunosuppressive targets commonly investigated in clinical trials, such as the programmed cell death protein-1/programmed death ligand-1 axis. However, infiltrating myeloid cell types within both primary and metastatic GEP-NETs were enriched for genes encoding other immune checkpoints, including (VISTA), (TIM3), (Gal-9), and . Our findings highlight the transcriptomic heterogeneity that distinguishes the cellular landscapes of GEP-NET anatomic subtypes and reveal potential avenues for future precision medicine therapeutics.

Year of Publication
2023
Journal
Science advances
Volume
9
Issue
39
Pages
eadd9668
Date Published
09/2023
ISSN
2375-2548
DOI
10.1126/sciadv.add9668
PubMed ID
37756410
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