Transcriptomic plasticity is a hallmark of metastatic pancreatic cancer

Abstract

Metastasis is the leading cause of cancer deaths; nonetheless, how tumor cells adapt to vastly different organ contexts is largely unknown. To investigate this question, we generated a transcriptomic atlas of primary tumor and diverse metastatic samples from a patient with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who underwent rapid autopsy. Unsupervised archetype analysis identified both shared and site-specific gene programs, including lipid metabolism and gastrointestinal programs prevalent in peritoneum and stomach wall lesions, respectively. We developed a probabilistic approach for inferring clonal phylogeny from single-cell and matched whole-exome data. Distantly related genetic clones in the peritoneum express the lipid metabolism program, likely due to signaling by the adipocyte-rich peritoneum environment, and cells in most clones express multiple programs, suggesting that transcriptomic plasticity is a prevalent feature of metastatic cells. These deeply annotated analyses using a patient-centric platform provide a model for investigating metastatic mechanisms and plasticity in advanced cancer.