Transcriptomic Plasticity Is a Hallmark of Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer

Metastasis is the leading cause of cancer deaths. To develop strategies for intercepting metastatic progression, a better understanding of how tumor cells adapt to vastly different organ contexts is needed. To investigate this question, a single-cell transcriptomic atlas of primary tumors and diverse metastatic samples (liver, omentum, peritoneum, stomach wall, lymph node, and diaphragm) from a patient with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who underwent rapid autopsy was generated. Using unsupervised archetype analysis, both shared and site-specific gene programs were identified, including lipid metabolism and gastrointestinal programs prevalent in peritoneal and stomach wall lesions, respectively. We developed phylogenetic inference from copy-number alterations in single-cell sequencing observations (PICASSO) as a probabilistic approach for inferring clonal phylogeny from single-cell and matched whole-exome sequencing data. Comparison of PICASSO-generated clonal structure with phenotypic signatures revealed that pancreatic cancer cells adapted to local environments with minimal contribution from clonal genotype. Our results suggest a paradigm whereby strong environmental effects are imposed on highly plastic cancer cells during metastatic dissemination.

Single-cell transcriptional profiling of primary tumor and metastases from rapid autopsy samples of an individual with pancreatic cancer, combined with probabilistic clonal inference by PICASSO, reveals substantial transcriptomic plasticity in metastatic cells. This article is part of a special series: Driving Cancer Discoveries with Computational Research, Data Science, and Machine Learning/AI .