Research
Single-cell sequencing analysis characterizes common and cell-lineage-specific mutations in a muscle-invasive bladder cancer
- † Equal contributors
1 BGI-Shenzhen, Beishan Industrial Zone, Beishan Road, Yantian, Shenzhen, 518083, People’s Republic of China
2 CAS-Max Planck Junior Research Group, State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), 32# Jiao-chang Road, Kunming, Yunnan, 650223, People’s Republic of China
3 Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China
4 College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Luojia Hill, Wuhan, 430072, People’s Republic of China
5 School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Sipailou 2#, Nanjing, 210096, People’s Republic of China
6 State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, Southeast University, Sipailou 2#, Nanjing, 210096, People’s Republic of China
7 Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Genitourinary Tumor, Shenzhen Second People’s Hospital, First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518035, People’s Republic of China
8 Department of Urology, Shenzhen Second People’s Hospital, Shenzhen, 518035, People’s Republic of China
9 The Institute of Urogenital Diseases, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, People’s Republic of China
10 BioMatrix, LLC, 3029 Windy Knoll Court, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA
11 Cancer and Inflammation Program, National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Building 560, Frederick, MD, 21702, USA
12 School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Centre, South China University of Technology, Panyu District, Guangzhou, 510006, People’s Republic of China
13 Guangdong and Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Male Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, Institute of Urology, Shenzhen PKU-HKUST Medical Center, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, 1120 Lian Hua Road, Futian District, Shenzhen, 518036, People’s Republic of China
14 Department of Urology, Longgang Central Hospital, Shenhui Road, Longgang Town, Shenzhen, 518116, People’s Republic of China
15 Institute of Human Genetics, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, 8100, Denmark
16 The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Ole Maaløes Vej 5, Copenhagen, DK, 2200, Denmark
17 Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Ole Maaløes Vej 5, Copenhagen, DK, 2200, Denmark
GigaScience 2012, 1:12 doi:10.1186/2047-217X-1-12
Published: 14 August 2012Abstract
Background
Cancers arise through an evolutionary process in which cell populations are subjected to selection; however, to date, the process of bladder cancer, which is one of the most common cancers in the world, remains unknown at a single-cell level.
Results
We carried out single-cell exome sequencing of 66 individual tumor cells from a muscle-invasive bladder transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). Analyses of the somatic mutant allele frequency spectrum and clonal structure revealed that the tumor cells were derived from a single ancestral cell, but that subsequent evolution occurred, leading to two distinct tumor cell subpopulations. By analyzing recurrently mutant genes in an additional cohort of 99 TCC tumors, we identified genes that might play roles in the maintenance of the ancestral clone and in the muscle-invasive capability of subclones of this bladder cancer, respectively.
Conclusions
This work provides a new approach of investigating the genetic details of bladder tumoral changes at the single-cell level and a new method for assessing bladder cancer evolution at a cell-population level.
