Back

Single-Cell RNA and ATAC Sequencing Reveal Cellular Heterogeneity and Chromatin Accessibility Dynamics in Young Chinese Breast Cancer Patients across Pre- and Post-Neoadjuvant Therapy

Han, X.; Wang, B.; Xiang, W.; Lin, F.; Sun, B.; Yang, B.; Ruan, Z.; Liu, S.; Li, S.; Liu, H.; Liu, J.

2025-10-15 cancer biology
10.1101/2025.10.14.682233 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Young breast cancer (YBC) patients (age [≤] 40) exhibit aggressive features and poor prognosis, while facing complex needs including breast-conserving surgery and fertility preservation. Neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) is important for tumor downstaging and breast-conserving surgery in YBC treatment, but the NAT response mechanisms in YBC patients remain unelucidated. Here, we analyzed pre- and post-NAT samples from Chinese YBC patients using scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq. We found that NAT reshaped cellular heterogeneity in the tumor microenvironment (TME), reducing epithelial and T cells while increasing endothelial cells and fibroblasts. Residual cancer cells showed enriched epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and stromal remodeling programs. NAT responders had fewer luminal-like cells and retained basal-like cells in an early hybrid EMT state, whereas non-responders maintained both populations with late hybrid EMT. We identified therapy-resistant genes and motifs (e.g., VTCN1, PROM1, MZB1, Fox family) and linked CXCL13 upregulation to poor NAT response and tumor-specific T-cell expansion. Cell-cell communication analysis revealed NAT reprograms the TME by suppressing VEGF and TNF signaling in basal cells, while residual luminal cells transmit EGFR and CD47-SIRPA signals.

Matching journals

The top 9 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.