Article
Single-cell transcriptomic landscape reveals tumor specific innate lymphoid cells associated with colorectal cancer progression

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2021.100353Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Healthy gut contains ILC1s, ILC3s, and ILC3/NKs, but no ILC2s

  • Blood and tumor ILCs from CRC patients have unique transcriptomic features

  • Tumor tissue from CRC patients contains a tumor specific ILC1-like subset and ILC2s

  • SLAMF1 is identified as an anti-tumor biomarker in CRC

Summary

Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are tissue-resident lymphocytes differing from conventional T lymphocytes in having no antigen-specific receptors. ILCs include natural killer (NK) cells, helper-like ILC1s, ILC2s, and ILC3s, and lymphoid tissue-inducer (LTi) cells. Tumor ILCs are frequently found in various cancers, but their roles in cancer immunity and immunotherapy remain largely unclear. We report here the single-cell characterization of blood and gut helper-like ILC subsets in healthy conditions and in colorectal cancer (CRC). The healthy gut contains ILC1s, ILC3s, and ILC3/NKs, but no ILC2s. Additional tumor-specific ILC1-like and ILC2 subsets were identified in CRC patients. Signaling lymphocytic activation molecule family member 1 (SLAMF1) was found to be selectively expressed on tumor-specific ILCs, and higher levels of SLAMF1+ ILCs were observed in the blood of CRC patients. The SLAMF1-high group of CRC patients had a significantly higher survival rate than the SLAMF1-low group, suggesting that SLAMF1 is an anti-tumor biomarker in CRC.

Keywords

inate lymphoid cells
single-cell RNA sequencing
colrectal cancer
SLAMF1
blood
ILC heterogeneity
TIGIT
ILC2s
ILC1s
biomarker

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