ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1586428
This article is part of the Research TopicImmune-genetic dynamics in disease progression and therapeutic strategiesView all 3 articles
Single-cell transcriptomics in colorectal cancer uncover the potential of metastasis and immune dysregulation of a cell cluster overexpressed PRSS22
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China
- 2Weifang People's Hospital, Weifang, Shandong Province, China
- 3School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
- 4School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
- 5Department of Oncology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide, and its complex pathogenesis and significant tumor cell heterogeneity remain major challenges. With the rapid development of single-cell sequencing technology, we can now delve deeper into the cellular composition and dynamic changes within the tumor microenvironment, revealing cellular interactions and their potential roles in tumorigenesis.In this study, we systematically analyzed comprehensive single-cell RNA sequencing data from 25 colorectal cancer and 10 adjacent normal tissue samples. We explored the characteristics and biological significance of tumor cell subpopulations, performed quality control, dimensionality reduction, and cell type identification, and further investigated epithelial cell copy number variations, cell communication, and pseudotime analysis. Subsequently, Boruta feature selection algorithm was combined to identify prognosis related genes. The expression patterns, clinical significance and biological effects of PRSS22 were validated in vitro.Results: Our analysis found an epithelial cell subcluster with high expression of PRSS22 exhibited high proliferation and migration abilities, and it was also associated with the dysregulated immune microenvironment. After further experimental verification, we proved the high expression patterns and clinical significance of PRSS22. Downregulation of PRSS22 in CRC cells resulted in a reduction of proliferation, migration and invasion.Our study has identified a cell subcluster that is closely linked to progression, immune dysregulation and prognosis in CRC, and we have also identified PRSS22 as its hub gene that has great potential to become a new immunotherapeutic targets target for CRC.
Keywords: ：colorectal cancer, single-cell sequencing, PRSS22, prognosis, metastasis, Immune dysregulation
Received: 02 Mar 2025; Accepted: 28 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Zhong, Xu, Zhou, Zhu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zhenhua Li, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China
Shoubin Zhong, Weifang People's Hospital, Weifang, 261000, Shandong Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.