Neuroblastoma heterogeneity and plasticity over disease progression are rooted in the dynamics of an early sympathetic transcriptional trajectory

This GEO series contains human scRNA-seq data of Neuroblastoma patients, used in two manuscripts. n=7 paired samples, primary tumour vs. bone marrow metastases n=2 non-paired samples, bone marrow metastases Titles: Article 1 PUBLISHED: Neuroblastoma plasticity during metastatic progression stems from the dynamics of an early sympathetic transcriptomic trajectory See Citation and PubMed ID below. Article 2 UNDER REVIEW: Single-cell analyses of paired primary neuroblastoma tumor and bone marrow metastases reveals intra-patient heterogeneity and therapy-resistant subpopulations Abstract of article 1: Despite their indisputable importance in neuroblastoma (NB) pathology, knowledge of the bases of NB plasticity and heterogeneity remains incomplete. They may be rooted in developmental trajectories of their lineage of origin, the sympatho-adrenal neural crest. We found that implanting human NB cells in the neural crest of the avian embryo allows recapitulating the metastatic sequence until bone marrow involvement. Using deep single cell RNA sequencing, we characterized transcriptome states of NB cells and their dynamics over time and space, and compared them to those of fetal sympatho-adrenal tissues and patient tumors and bone marrow samples. Here we report remarkable transcriptomic proximities restricted to an early sympathetic neuroblast branch that co-exist with phenotypical adaptations over disease progression and recapitulate intratumor and interpatient heterogeneity. Combining avian and patient datasets, we identified a list of genes upregulated upon bone marrow involvement and associated with growth dependency, validating the relevance of our multimodal approach. Despite being key pathological features, Neuroblastoma (NB) plasticity and Heterogeneity remain largely misunderstood. They may be rooted in complex developmental trajectories of their embryonic lineage of origin, the sympatho-adrenal neural crest. We found that implanting human NB cells in the neural crest of the avian embryo allows recapitulating the metastatic sequence until bone marrow involvement. Using deep single cell RNA sequencing, we characterized transcriptional states of NB cells and their dynamics over time and space, and compared them to those of fetal sympatho-adrenal tissues and patient tumors, including matched primary tumor and bone marrow samples. We found remarkable transcriptomic proximities restricted to an early sympathetic neuroblast branch that co-exist with phenotypical adaptations over disease progression and recapitulate intratumor and interpatient heterogeneity. Combining avian model and patient datasets, we identified a list of candidate genes upon bone marrow involvement associated with NB growth dependency, validating the relevance of our multimodal approach.