TMExplorer: A Tumour Microenvironment Single-cell RNAseq Database and Search Tool

Abstract

Tumour microenvironments (TME) contain a variety of cells including but not limited to stromal fibroblasts, endothelial cells, immune cells, malignant cells, and cells of the tissues of origin, whose interactions likely influence tumour behaviour and response to cancer treatment. The specific composition of the TME can be elucidated using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) by measuring expression profiles of individual cells. Several scRNA-seq datasets from multiple cancer types have been published in recent years, yet we still lack a comprehensive database for the collection and presentation of TME data from these studies in an easily accessible format. We have thus built a database of TME scRNA-seq data, containing 21 TME scRNA-seq datasets from 12 different cancer types. We have also created an R package called TMExplorer, which provides an interface to easily search and access all available datasets and their metadata. Data and metadata are kept in a consistent format across all datasets, with multiple expression formats available depending on the use case. Users can view a table of metadata and select individual datasets or filter them by specific characteristics. Users may also select a specific type of cancer and view all published scRNA-seq data for that cancer type available in our database. Users are provided with an option to save the data in multiple formats in order to view or process it outside of R. Thus, the TMExplorer database and search tool allows for thorough examination of the TME using scRNA-seq in a way that is streamlined and allows for easy integration into already existing scRNA-seq analysis pipelines.