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Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Author Spotlight: Establishment of Pancreatic Cancer-Derived Tumor Organoids and Fibroblasts From Fresh Tissue
Published on: May 26, 2023
Multi-omic dataset of patient-derived tumor organoids of neuroendocrine neoplasms
Nicolas Alcala1, Catherine Voegele1, Lise Mangiante1,2
1Rare Cancers Genomics Team (RCG), Genomic Epidemiology Branch (GEM), International Agency for Research on Cancer/World Health Organization (IARC/WHO), Lyon 69008, France.
Background:
Organoids are 3-dimensional experimental models that summarize the anatomical and functional structure of an organ. Although a promising experimental model for precision medicine, patient-derived tumor organoids (PDTOs) have currently been developed only for a fraction of tumor types.
Results:
We have generated the first multi-omic dataset (whole-genome sequencing [WGS] and RNA-sequencing [RNA-seq]) of PDTOs from the rare and understudied pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (n = 12; 6 grade 1, 6 grade 2) and provide data from other rare neuroendocrine neoplasms: small intestine (ileal) neuroendocrine tumors (n = 6; 2 grade 1 and 4 grade 2) and large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (n = 5; 1 pancreatic and 4 pulmonary). This dataset includes a matched sample from the parental sample (primary tumor or metastasis) for a majority of samples (21/23) and longitudinal sampling of the PDTOs (1 to 2 time points), for a total of n = 47 RNA-seq and n = 33 WGS. We here provide quality control for each technique and the raw and processed data as well as all scripts for genomic analyses to ensure an optimal reuse of the data. In addition, we report gene expression data and somatic small variant calls and describe how they were generated, in particular how we used WGS somatic calls to train a random forest classifier to detect variants in tumor-only RNA-seq. We also report all histopathological images used for medical diagnosis: hematoxylin and eosin-stained slides, brightfield images, and immunohistochemistry images of protein markers of clinical relevance.
Conclusions:
This dataset will be critical to future studies relying on this PDTO biobank, such as drug screens for novel therapies and experiments investigating the mechanisms of carcinogenesis in these understudied diseases.
Insights
Researchers created the first multi-omic dataset for patient-derived tumor organoids (PDTOs) from rare neuroendocrine tumors. This comprehensive dataset, including genomic and histopathological data, will advance precision medicine and cancer research for these understudied diseases.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Genomics
- Biotechnology
Background:
- Organoids are 3D models mimicking organ structure and function.
- Patient-derived tumor organoids (PDTOs) show promise for precision medicine.
- PDTOs are currently limited to a few cancer types.
Purpose of the Study:
- To generate the first multi-omic dataset of PDTOs from rare pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors.
- To provide comprehensive genomic and histopathological data for understudied neuroendocrine neoplasms.
- To facilitate future research in drug screening and carcinogenesis mechanisms.
Main Methods:
- Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) of PDTOs and matched parental tumors.
- Generation of a multi-omic dataset including 47 RNA-seq and 33 WGS samples.
- Development of a random forest classifier to detect variants in tumor-only RNA-seq using WGS data.
- Inclusion of histopathological images (H&E, brightfield, IHC) for diagnosis.
Main Results:
- Generated a novel multi-omic dataset for PDTOs from pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (n=12), ileal neuroendocrine tumors (n=6), and large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (n=5).
- Provided raw and processed data, quality control metrics, and analysis scripts for data reuse.
- Reported gene expression data, somatic small variant calls, and histopathological images.
Conclusions:
- The generated dataset is crucial for future studies utilizing this PDTO biobank.
- Enables drug screening for novel therapies in rare neuroendocrine tumors.
- Supports investigations into the mechanisms of carcinogenesis in understudied diseases.

