Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 16, 2025
05:58
Author Spotlight: Exploring Strategies for Successful Immune Response Against Tumors
Published on: August 16, 2024
3.1K
Analysis of Single-Cell RNA-Seq Data to Investigate Tumor Cell Heterogeneity in Uroepithelial Bladder Cancer and
Lu Zhang1, Yu Wang1, Jianjun Tan1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Life Science, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Intelligent Physiological Measurement and Clinical Transformation, Beijing 100124, China.
Current Cancer Drug Targets
|July 10, 2025
Summary
Cancer stemness in urothelial bladder cancer (UBC) is linked to immunotherapy resistance. Tumor stemness gene sets effectively predict response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) and drug sensitivity.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Immunology
- Genomics
Background:
- Cancer stem cells (CSCs) and the tumor microenvironment (TME) are associated with immunotherapy resistance.
- The interplay between CSCs, TME, and immunotherapy resistance in urothelial bladder cancer (UBC) is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of tumor stemness in UBC and its association with immunotherapy and drug response.
- To develop predictive models for immunotherapy response in UBC.
Main Methods:
- Meta-analysis of UBC single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data.
- Utilized tumor stemness gene sets (Ste.genes) and analyzed their relationship with ICI response and drug sensitivity using TIDE and drug sensitivity analyses.
- Developed machine learning models based on Ste.genes to predict ICI response.
Main Results:
- Identified a hypoxia-related tumor subgroup associated with angiogenesis and metastasis.
- Found that Ste.genes scores correlate with cellular immunity, immunotherapy response, and drug sensitivity.
- Machine learning models based on Ste.genes achieved an AUC > 0.7 for predicting ICI response, demonstrating effective prediction.
Conclusions:
- Analysis of UBC scRNA-seq data revealed the role of hypoxic subpopulations in tumor development.
- Established a link between cell stemness and resistance to immunotherapy and drug sensitivity in UBC.
- Extracted Ste.genes to effectively predict immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) response.
