ArticleJournal of translational medicine2025
Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals a B cell-related immunosuppressive landscape and a potential suppressor in hepatocellular carcinoma.
Article in Journal of translational medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Single-cell spatial landscape of aggrephagy activity stratifies hepatocellular carcinoma neutrophils and delivers a 5-gene diagnostic panel for patient stratification.Translational oncology · 2026Article
- Hepatocellular carcinoma metastasis-immune microenvironment crosstalk: emerging mechanisms and immunotherapy.Cellular & molecular biology letters · 2026Review
- An integrative transcriptomic analysis for prognosis and tumor microenvironment in HBV/HCV-associated hepatocellular carcinoma.Molecular therapy. Oncology · 2026Article
- Loss of PTEN as an Independent Poor Prognosis Indicator in Lung Adenocarcinoma, but Not in Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Is Associated with an Immunosuppressive Tumor Microenvironment and Distinct Co-Mutational Profiles.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Multi-omics and spatial transcriptomics decode the ZDHHC9-driven hypoxia-immunosuppressive axis in hepatocellular carcinoma.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Multi-omics characterization of RNA modification enzymes identifies NAT10 as a functionally validated prognostic biomarker in hepatocellular carcinoma.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
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Abstract
backgroundThe sophisticated tumour microenvironment is responsible for the malignant progression and poor prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Discovering new therapeutic targets is desired for the preferable treatment of HCC patients.
methodsTo characterize the HCC microenvironment, the single-cell transcriptomes of HCC tissues and corresponding noncancerous tissues were analysed. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs), enriched pathways and subgroups were analysed in B cells. Moreover, heterogeneity between malignant and normal hepatocytes was further investigated, which revealed potential biomarkers for HCC progression. The candidate biomarkers were further explored in datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) databases. Serum amyloid A2 (SAA2) was detected and further validated in HCC tissues by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot analysis. The biological roles of SAA2 were further investigated in HCC cells.
resultsThe number of B cells in HCC tissues was significantly lower than that in noncancerous tissues, which may result in an immunosuppressive status of the HCC microenvironment. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and functional enrichment analysis revealed that B cells might participate in the immunosuppression of HCC by regulating lipid metabolism. Analysis on B cell subgroups demonstrated Naïve B cells were significantly reduced in HCC tissues compared with noncancerous tissues, which indicated that Naïve B cells might be pivotal in the B cell-related immunosuppressive landscape in HCC. Further analysis of hepatocytes revealed highly expressed genes in normal hepatocytes derived from noncancerous liver tissues, which were validated in datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) databases. Interestingly, serum amyloid A2 (SAA2) was highly expressed in normal liver tissues compared with HCC tissues. The results were validated in clinical HCC samples by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot assays. Moreover, investigations in HCC cells revealed that SAA2 acted as a tumour suppressor in HCC progression.
conclusionsTaken together, the present findings elucidated the B cell-related immunosuppressive landscape in HCC and identified SAA2 as a novel suppressor in HCC, providing a better understanding of the HCC landscape and suggesting a promising therapeutic target for HCC patients.
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