ArticleCell discovery2021
Single-cell analysis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma identifies a novel fibroblast subtype associated with poor prognosis but better immunotherapy response.
Article in Cell discovery, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 183 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
183 citing papers in PubMed, 291 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spatial interactions of immune cells as potential predictors to efficacy of toripalimab plus chemotherapy in locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: a phase Ib/II trial.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Trial
- Development and validation of a radiomics model of magnetic resonance for predicting liver metastasis in resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients.Radiation oncology (London, England) · 2023Trial
- Periductal Fibroblast Density Defines Lymphocyte Exclusion via a CD44-Dependent Stromal Checkpoint in Pancreatic Cancer.Cancer immunology research · 2026Article
- Article
- A Full Spectrum Fibroblast Profiling Panel Reveals Phenotypic and Metabolic Heterogeneity of Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts at the Single-Cell Level.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The tumor microenvironment in pancreatic cancer: from composition to therapeutic targeting.Biochemical Society transactions · 2026Review
- Treg-derived exosomal miR-146a orchestrates bidirectional Treg-CAF crosstalk to sustain immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2026Review
- Molecular phenotypes and spatial archetypes: A new framework for cancer-associated fibroblasts.Cancer cell · 2026Review
- CDH2 marks a fibroblast-associated stromal cell state in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.Human cell · 2026Article
- Antibody subclass deficiency accelerates tumorigenesis in genetically engineered mouse models of pancreatic cancer.JCI insight · 2026Article
- Single cell spatial transcriptomics track the evolutionary hierarchy and microenvironment remodeling during breast carcinoma invasion.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Single-cell profiling reveals a novel CAF subpopulation linking stromal heterogeneity to immune suppression in breast cancer subtypes.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Article
- Glycolytic cancer-associated fibroblasts orchestrate metabolic remodeling in the tumor microenvironment.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2026Review
- Tumor microenvironment-specific nanomedicine: from biology-driven to multi-omics-guided precision engineering.Journal of hematology & oncology · 2026Review
- Article
- Multimodal transcriptomics reveal myCAF-derived collagen signaling associated with impaired NK-cell cytotoxicity and immune exclusion in pancreatic cancer.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Article
- Glycolysis-driven cancer-associated fibroblasts shape T-Cell exclusion via the CXCL16-CXCR6 Axis: a metabolic-chemokine mechanism in tumor immunity.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Review
- Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: integrating molecular insights for targeted interventions.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Review
- A tumor microenvironment integrated (TMI) staging system for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma based on cancer-associated fibroblast and molecular consensus signatures.Discover oncology · 2026Article
- Decoding the CAF-TAM axis: multi-omics dissection and therapeutic targeting of stromal-immune crosstalk in the tumor microenvironment.Cell death & disease · 2026Review
123 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
20 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The current pathological and molecular classification of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) provides limited guidance for treatment options, especially for immunotherapy. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are major players of desmoplastic stroma in PDAC, modulating tumor progression and therapeutic response. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, we explored the intertumoral heterogeneity among PDAC patients with different degrees of desmoplasia. We found substantial intertumoral heterogeneity in CAFs, ductal cancer cells, and immune cells between the extremely dense and loose types of PDACs (dense-type, high desmoplasia; loose-type, low desmoplasia). Notably, no difference in CAF abundance was detected, but a novel subtype of CAFs with a highly activated metabolic state (meCAFs) was found in loose-type PDAC compared to dense-type PDAC. MeCAFs had highly active glycolysis, whereas the corresponding cancer cells used oxidative phosphorylation as a major metabolic mode rather than glycolysis. We found that the proportion and activity of immune cells were much higher in loose-type PDAC than in dense-type PDAC. Then, the clinical significance of the CAF subtypes was further validated in our PDAC cohort and a public database. PDAC patients with abundant meCAFs had a higher risk of metastasis and a poor prognosis but showed a dramatically better response to immunotherapy (64.71% objective response rate, one complete response). We characterized the intertumoral heterogeneity of cellular components, immune activity, and metabolic status between dense- and loose-type PDACs and identified meCAFs as a novel CAF subtype critical for PDAC progression and the susceptibility to immunotherapy.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.