Description: Liver cancer is one of the most malignant cancers in the world, and a relapse rate up to 60~70% after resection is a major factor contributing to a low 5-year survival rate (~15%). We generated more than 20,000 single-cell full-length transcriptomes profiles from 19 primary or relapsed hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, to determine the landscape of the tumor microenvironment in relapsed HCC, as well as a comparison with primary HCC. We discovered that relapsed lesions have a unique immune composition as compared to the primary tumor, with a lower abundance of Tregs, a higher ratio of dendritic cells (DCs), and more infiltrated CD8+ than CD4+ T cells. In addition, we found that CD8+ T cells in the primary and relapsed tumor have the same transition path, but were in different states, CD8+ T cells from relapsed tumor showing an innate lymphoid cell (ILC)-like state, with a high naïve signal and low cytotoxic and exhausted signals. Further analysis also indicates that the abundance of distinct DC subtypes is associated with good prognosis in both primary and relapsed HCC. Also, FCN1+ monocytes are associated with poor prognosis only in relapsed HCC and not in primary HCC. Differential analysis between primary and relapsed tumor cells in gene expression level and interactions with other cells also reveals potential different immune evasion and tumor survival strategies in relapsed and primary HCC. Together these results provide a compressive understanding of the ecosystem in primary and relapsed HCC tumors, which could be used to guide future immune therapy strategies.

Data type: Raw sequence reads

Sample scope: Multiisolate

Release date: 2020-12-12

Last updated: 2019-09-11

Data size: 219.0MB