A single-cell landscape of pre- and post-menopausal high-grade serous ovarian cancer ascites

Wenying Chen; Hanyuan Liu; Xinya Huang; Lili Qian; Liang Chen; Yonggang Zhou; Yi Liu; Yujie Liu; Yingying Wang; Tianjiao Zhang; Youyang Zhou; Jingwen Fang; Jiaxuan Yang; Fang Ni; Chuang Guo; Ying Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107712

A single-cell landscape of pre- and post-menopausal high-grade serous ovarian cancer ascites

iScience. 2023 Aug 25;26(10):107712. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107712. eCollection 2023 Oct 20.

Authors

Wenying Chen¹, Hanyuan Liu¹, Xinya Huang¹, Lili Qian¹, Liang Chen², Yonggang Zhou^{3

4}, Yi Liu¹, Yujie Liu¹, Yingying Wang¹, Tianjiao Zhang¹, Youyang Zhou⁵, Jingwen Fang^{6

5}, Jiaxuan Yang⁵, Fang Ni^{3

4

7}, Chuang Guo^{6

8}, Ying Zhou¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Core Facility Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230001, China.
² Department of Cardiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, the CAS Key Laboratory of Innate Immunity and Chronic Disease, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
³ The CAS Key Laboratory of Innate Immunity and Chronic Disease, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
⁴ Institute of Immunology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
⁵ HanGene Biotech, Xiaoshan Innovation Polis, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 31200, China.
⁶ Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230021, China.
⁷ Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Hefei, Anhui, China.
⁸ Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.

Abstract

High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is a hormone-related cancer with high mortality and poor prognosis. Based on the transcriptome of 57,444 cells in ascites from 10 patients with HGSOC (including 5 pre-menopausal and 5 post-menopausal patients), we identified 14 cell clusters which were further classified into 6 cell types, including T cells, B cells, NK cells, myeloid cells, epithelial cells, and stromal cells. We discovered an increased proportion of epithelial cells and a decreased proportion of T cells in pre-menopausal ascites compared with post-menopausal ascites. GO analysis revealed the pre-menopausal tumor microenvironments (TME) are closely associated with viral infection, while the post-menopausal TME are mostly related to the IL-17 immune pathway. SPP1/CD44-mediated crosstalk between myeloid cells and B cells, NK cells, and stromal cells mainly present in the pre-menopausal group, while SPP1/PTGER4 -mediated crosstalk between myeloid cells and epithelial cells mostly present in the post-menopausal group.

Keywords: Cancer; Microenvironment.