Cancer associated fibroblasts promote epithelial to mesenchymal transition and classical to basal change in pancreatic cancer cells in association with loss of IL-8 expression

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) carries an extremely poor prognosis, in part resulting from cellular heterogeneity that supports overall tumorigenicity. Cancer associated fibroblasts (CAF) are key determinants of PDAC biology and response to systemic therapy. While CAF subtypes have been defined, the effects of patient-specific CAF heterogeneity and plasticity on tumor cell behavior remain unclear. Here, multi-omics was used to characterize the tumor microenvironment (TME) in tumors from patients undergoing curative-intent surgery for PDAC. In these same patients, matched tumor organoid and CAF lines were established to functionally validate the impact of CAFs on the tumor cells. CAFs were found to drive epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and a switch in tumor cell classification from classical to basal subtype. Furthermore, we identified CAF-specific interleukin 8 (IL-8) as a contributing modulator of tumor cell subtype. Finally, we defined neighborhood relationships between tumor cell and T cell subsets.