Bioinformatics Seminar
Time:
Venue: Na
1 December 2020
NaSingle-cell phenotypes of the malignant pleural effusion
Holly WhitfieldWEHI Bioinformatics
Malignant pleural effusions are a common complication of advanced cancers ; where fluid accumulates in the pleural cavity that surrounds the lungs. This is associated with poor prognosis and causes breathing difficulties ; pain ; and discomfort for the patient. Following chest drainage ; pleural effusions and the cancer cells they contain are discarded. The extent to which these cells are diagnostic or clinically informative is unknown ; however ; the phenotypic diversity of cancer cells and immune populations in these samples have not yet been investigated at a single-cell resolution. To characterise malignant pleural effusions I analysed 10 scRNA-seq samples from 7 metastatic breast cancer patients totaling 64 ;451 cells. During my talk ; I will describe the difficulties of cell type annotation (especially where no appropriate reference is available) and show how I observed phenotypic diversity in malignant cells that echoed disease heterogeneity. I will specifically focus on an unexpected population of cells that appear to be contributing to the cancer microenvironment.