Anthony T. Nguyen, Assistant Professor at Cedars-Sinai, shared on X:
“Proud to share our newest paper in Science Advances, a translational collaboration with our lab, Allen S. Ho, and the Shiao lab at Cedars-Sinai.
We used scRNA-seq to understand how thyroid cancers efficiently migrate to LNs and how this impacts prognosis.”
Title: Single-cell transcriptomic analysis reveals tumor-immune determinants of lymph node colonization and progression in thyroid cancer
Authors: Anthony T. Nguyen, Jolene Viramontes, Isaiah Vazquez, Catriona McWilliam, Vaishnavi Devarakonda, Regina Henson, Wendy L. Sacks, Jon Mallen-St Clair, Yufei Chen, Evan Walgama, Kevin S. Scher, Justin Moyers, Howard M. Sandler, Julie K. Jang, Zachary S. Zumsteg, Wonwoo Shon, Stephen L. Shiao, Allen S. Ho
We performed scRNA-seq on CD45-enriched samples from paired primary thyroid tumors and metastatic lymph nodes from 5 patients with locally advanced disease, followed by mIHC validation in a separate cohort of patients with papillary thyroid cancers.
We identified a significant increase in Tregs within the nodal microenvironment compared to primary tumors in both cohorts.
These data suggest that Tregs may facilitate LN metastases by promoting an immunosuppressive TME, consistent with other preclinical data.
These immunosuppressive cues were counterbalanced by immune-activating elements including the upregulation of IL7R. Notably, nodal expression of IL7R was significantly correlated with improved oncologic outcomes and may serve as a novel biomarker for patient risk stratification.
Our findings on the dynamic equilibrium within LN metastases may offer conserved mechanisms for nodal colonization across solid tumors. This work was generously funded and supported by Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, ASTRO, National Cancer Institute and Cedars-Sinai.”
Research Tip Sheet: Cedars-Sinai Heart, Aging and Cancer Advances
Other articles about thyroid cancer on OncoDaily.