Page 130 - ebook

[A. Biochemistry/Molecular Biology] A-65

Prognostic extracellular matrix-related genes exhibit a cell

type-specific expression pattern in non-small cell lung cancer

tumors

Karolina Prazanowska¹, Su Bin Lim¹*

¹Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon 16499, Korea

Introduction Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) is the most common lung cancer type. Moreover, it is
characterized by poor sensitivity to chemotherapy. Disruption in extracellular matrix (ECM) components has long

been associated with cancer initiation and metastasis. However, limited knowledge is available on expression of
ECM-associated genes at the single-cell level. Aim of the study The purpose of our research was to investigate

several available single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) datasets to observe cell-type distribution of ECM-
associated genes expression in NSCLC human patients tumors. Materials and Methods The data analyzed in this

work was acquired from the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus. The analysis of five datasets was conducted separately
using Seurat R package. Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection enabled visualization of clusters

representing different cell types present in each tumor tissue. Finally, distribution of cells expressing the 29 ECM
genes was visualized in obtained clusters. Results The 29 ECM-related genes showed similarity in expression patterns
on a cell type level among investigated datasets. The most commonly occurring cell types were found to be

fibroblasts, lung alveolar cells and macrophages. Conclusions To conclude, our in silico analysis indicates that ECM

genes expression might show a cell type-specific pattern.