Unravelling the role of immune cells and FN1 in the recurrence and therapeutic process of skull base chordoma

作者：Xulei Huo, Sihan Ma, Can Wang, Lairong Song, Bo-Han Yao, Sipeng Zhu, Peiran Li, Liang Wang, Zhen Wu, Ke Wang · 发表于：Clinical and Translational Medicine · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1002/ctm2.1429 · 被引用次数：29 · 研究领域：Bone Tumor Diagnosis and Treatments、Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology、Sarcoma Diagnosis and Treatment

BACKGROUND: Skull base chordoma is a rare and aggressive tumour of the bone that has a high likelihood of recurrence. The fundamental differences in single cells between primary and recurrent lesions remain poorly understood, impeding development of effective treatment approaches. METHODS: To obtain an understanding of the differences in single cells between primary and recurrent chordomas, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing and T-cell/B-cell receptor (BCR) sequencing. This allowed us to delineate the differences between the two types of tumour cells, tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes, myeloid cells, fibroblasts and B cells. Copy number variants (CNVs) were detected and compared between the tumour types to assess heterogeneity. Selected samples were subjected to immunohistochemistry to validate protein expression. Fluorescence in situ hybridisation experiments, Transwell assays and xenograft mouse models helped verify the role of fibronectin 1 (FN1) in chordoma. RESULTS: Promoting natural killer (NK) cell and CD8_GZMK T-cell function or inhibiting the transformation of CD8_GZMK T cells to CD8_ZNF683 T cells and promoting the transformation of natural killer T (NKT) cells to NK cells are promising strategies for preventing chordoma recurrence. Additionally, inhibiting the M2-like activity of tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs) could be an effective approach. Antigen-presenting cancer-associated fibroblasts (apCAFs) and dendritic cells (DCs) with high enrichment of the anti...