The effect of co-culture on MMTV-HER2 early lesion or primary tumor cell and alveolar macrophages [bulk RNA-seq]

Disseminated cancer cells reside in the lung alveolar niche where they are exposed to interactions with alveolar macrophages. Here we report bulk RNA-sequencing data from co-cultured MMTV-HER2 mammary early lesion cells or mammary primary tumor cells cultured with lung alveolar macrophages. We discovered reciprocal regulation between mammary cells and alveolar macrophages, where early lesion cells instruct alveolar macrophages to maintain an anti-tumor phenotype and alveolar macrophages activate an epithelial to mesenchymal program in early lesion cells. Coveresely, primary tumor cells activate inflammatory prorgams in alveolar macrophages, while alveolar macrophages are not able to activate growth restriction programs in primary tumor cells. Receptor-ligand analysis highlighted two known pathways invovled in quiencesce, namely the TGF-beta pathway and the OSM pathway.