In situ multi-modal characterization of pancreatic cancer reveals tumor cell identity as a defining factor of the surrounding microenvironment.

Lyubetskaya A., Rabe B., Kavran A., Bai Y., Fisher A., Font-Tello A., Lewin A., Pliner H., Fan Y., Giampapa L., Cheng Y., Dai C., Hu R., Lila T., Alloy AP., Mason M., Brett C., Brett T., Seifuddin F., Vasquez Grinnell S., Stahlschmidt SR., Zhao Y., Golhar R., Neuhaus I., Carrera D., Rios C., Kar P., Shukla A., Bashford-Rogers R., Meyer MJ., Abu Shah E., Heij L., Sivakumar S., Trillo-Tinoco J., Chen BJ., Mavrakis KJ., Drokhlyansky E.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is heterogeneous, with low tumor purity, a prominent microenvironment, and complex architecture, which preclude the identification of shared tumor-intrinsic and stromal biology within and across patients. We overcame these challenges by achieving necessary resolution and context through the application of complementary genomics, pathology, and machine-learning approaches to characterize primary untreated tumors from 39 patients. We captured 340,000 spatial low-bulk and 530,000 spatial single-cell transcriptomes and observed a spectrum of classical-to-basal tumor subtypes present within all patients. We found that each subtype has distinct regulators, stromal neighborhoods, microenvironment, extracellular matrix, and histology corresponding to multiple immunosuppressive and therapy resistance mechanisms. We defined key tumor heterogeneity features, including the presence of mixed KRAS mutations and tertiary lymphoid structures, identifying biomarkers that distinguish the latter from lymph nodes. Lastly, by leveraging patient, cell, and mouse data, we determined which aspects of tumor biology are recapitulated in bulk datasets and reductionist models.

DOI

10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116827

Type

Journal article

Publication Date

2026-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Volume

45

Keywords

CP: Cancer, PDAC, hypoxia, oncology, pancreatic adenocarcinoma, pancreatic cancer, single cell, spatial genomics, spatial transcriptomics, tumor microenvironment, tumor subtype, Humans, Pancreatic Neoplasms, Tumor Microenvironment, Animals, Mice, Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal, Female, Transcriptome, Single-Cell Analysis, Mutation, Proto-Oncogene Proteins p21(ras)

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