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Mast cells interact directly with colorectal cancer cells to promote epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition

GSE327697 Homo sapiens (human) RNA-seq (gene expression) 12 samples Submitted 2026/04/17 Platform GPL18573
At a glance

RNA-seq (gene expression) · human · 12 samples

What it is
RNA-seq (gene expression)Gene activity measured by sequencing. The summary does not mention single-cell work, so this is most likely bulk: one average per sample, the usual starting point for comparing groups.
Organism
Homo sapiens (human)
Topic
Colorectal cancerThis series is part of our curated briefing on it.
Samples
12 samples: 3 × HT29_Alone vs 3 × HT29_Coculture vs 3 × LAD2_Alone vs 3 × LAD2_CocultureGroups are read from the sample names, not from the paper. Check the list below.
Data you can get
A processed table (series matrix) and supplementary files from NCBI; the raw sequencing reads from ENA. Which of these hold counts depends on the study, so check the file list.
Paper
Mast Cells Selectively Deliver Extracellular Vesicle-Encapsulated mRNA to Colorectal Cancer CellsImmunology and cell biology · 2026
Summary (written by the submitters)
Mast cells (MCs), a type of granulocytic immune cell, can be both pro- and anti-tumorigenic in colorectal cancer (CRC). We hypothesized that these contrasting findings may be in part due to differential interactions of MCs with CRC subtypes. BRAF mutant CRC uniquely contains intestinal secretory cell types. In this study, we demonstrated that MCs are enriched in BRAF mutant CRC, likely because they are recruited by factors released from cancer secretory cells.
Read the full summary ↓
To investigate the functional consequences of MC-CRC cell interactions, we performed direct coculture experiments. We demonstrated that MCs promote epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in CRC cells in a calcium- and contact-dependent fashion. Furthermore, inhibiting LFA-1 and ICAM1 integrin binding reduced the coculture-induced EMT-related marker expression in CRC cells. The MC-CRC cell interaction facilitates the transfer of biological materials, including mRNA molecules, from MCs to CRC cells. This study is the first to report a contact-dependent, pro-tumorigenic role of MCs in CRC, as well as the transfer of molecules encoded by MCs to CRC cells. These findings enhance our comprehension of cell-cell communication between immune and cancer cells. Furthermore, this work suggests that targeting MC-CRC interactions, particularly through modulating integrin pathways, could offer new therapeutic strategies for aggressive CRC subtypes.
Published in
Mast Cells Selectively Deliver Extracellular Vesicle-Encapsulated mRNA to Colorectal Cancer Cells
Lanzloth R, El Farran B, Podicheti R et al. · Immunology and cell biology 2026 · PMID 42409601 · doi:10.1111/imcb.70147
This dataset
Download · which file do I need?

Direct links to NCBI and ENA, no account and no request form. Pick by what you want to do: take the small processed table to look, the supplementary files to re-analyse, or the original raw data to start over.

1 · Just have a look

Processed table

The series matrix: one table of values per sample as the submitters processed it. The smallest download, and it opens in Excel or R. Start here to see what the data look like.

2 · Re-analyse it

Supplementary files

The count tables and other files the authors uploaded. Take only the samples you need, or the whole study as GSE327697_RAW.tar (it can run to tens of gigabytes).

3 · Start from the raw reads

Raw sequencing reads

The original FASTQ files, straight from the sequencer, held at ENA. Large, and you align them yourself, so only choose this if you need to re-process the study from scratch.

What the files usually look like: For RNA-seq the counts are usually a table among the supplementary files (look for 'counts', 'expression', 'FPKM' or 'TPM' in the file name). The series matrix of a sequencing study is sometimes nearly empty.

Also filed as BioProject PRJNA1451888 and SRA study SRP690943. Searching any of these in the dataset finder brings you back here.

Study design
3 × HT29_Alone vs 3 × HT29_Coculture vs 3 × LAD2_Alone vs 3 × LAD2_Coculture

Supports a between-group comparison across 12 samples.

How we read this: 4 replicated groups read from 12 sample titles; they account for 12 of them. These groups are guessed from the sample names, not taken from the paper, so check them against the sample list below before relying on them.

Samples in this study
More Colorectal cancer datasets

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Metadata from NCBI GEO, cached and refreshed periodically — the NCBI page above is authoritative. Downloads link straight to NCBI/ENA; nothing is proxied through BioTransfer.