Background Lung cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease. Cancer cells and cells within the tumor microenvironment together determine disease progression, as well as response to or escape from treatment.

Materials and Methods To map the cell type-specific transcriptome landscape of cancer cells and their tumor microenvironment in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), we analyzed 42 tissue biopsy samples from stage III/IV NSCLC patients by single cell RNA sequencing and presented the large scale, single cell resolution profiles of advanced NSCLCs.

Results In addition to cell types described in previous single cell studies of early stage lung cancer, we were able to identify new cell types such as follicular dendritic cells and T helper 17 cells. Tumors from different patients display large heterogeneity in cellular composition, chromosomal structure, developmental trajectory, intercellular signaling network and phenotype dominance. Our study also revealed a correlation of tumor heterogeneity with tumor associated neutrophils, which might help to shed light on their function in NSCLC.

Conclusions This study presented first-time the tumor heterogeneity and tumor microenvironment profile from late-stage, largely untreated NSCLC patients, and shed light on possible treatment regimes.

Disclosure Information Y. Cordts: A. Employment (full or part-time); Modest; Singleron Biotechnologies GmbH. F. Wu: None. J. Fan: A. Employment (full or part-time); Modest; Singleron Biotechnologies GmbH. M. Odenthal: None. R. Buettner: None. C. Zhou: None.