Background: Metastasis, the leading cause of cancer-related death in patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer (OC), is a complex process that involves multiple biological effects. With the continuous development of sequencing technology, single-cell sequence has emerged as a promising strategy to understand the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer.
Methods: Through integrating 10 × single-cell data from 12 samples, we developed a single-cell map of primary and metastatic OC. By copy-number variations analysis, pseudotime analysis, enrichment analysis, and cell-cell communication analysis, we explored the heterogeneity among OC cells. We performed differential expression analysis and high dimensional weighted gene co-expression network analysis to identify the hub genes of C4. The effects of RAB13 on OC cell lines were validated in vitro.
Results: We discovered a cell subcluster, referred to as C4, that is closely associated with metastasis and poor prognosis in OC. This subcluster correlated with an epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and angiogenesis signature and RAB13 was identified as the key marker of it. Downregulation of RAB13 resulted in a reduction of OC cells migration and invasion. Additionally, we predicted several potential drugs that might inhibit RAB13.
Conclusions: Our study has identified a cell subcluster that is closely linked to metastasis in OC, and we have also identified RAB13 as its hub gene that has great potential to become a new therapeutic target for OC.
Keywords: Heterogeneity; Metastasis; Ovarian cancer; RAB13; Single-cell transcriptomics.
© 2023. The Author(s).