Single-Cell RNA-seq Identification of the Cellular Molecular Characteristics of Sporadic Bilateral Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Bilateral renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a rare disease that can be classified as either familial or sporadic. Studying the cellular molecular characteristics of sporadic bilateral RCC is important to provide guidance for clinical treatment. Cellular molecular characteristics can be expressed at the RNA level, especially at the single-cell degree. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) was performed on bilateral clear cell RCC (ccRCC). A total of 3,575 and 3,568 high-quality single-cell transcriptome data were captured from the left and right tumour tissues, respectively. Gene characteristics were identified by comparing left and right tumours at the scRNA level. The complex cellular environment of bilateral ccRCC was presented by using scRNA-seq. Single-cell transcriptomic analysis revealed high similarity in gene expression among most of the cell types of bilateral RCCs but significant differences in gene expression among different site tumour cells. Additionally, the potential biological function of different tumour cell types was determined by gene ontology (GO) analysis. The transcriptome characteristics of tumour tissues in different locations at the single-cell transcriptome level were revealed through the scRNA-seq of bilateral sporadic ccRCC. This work provides new insights into the diagnosis and treatment of bilateral RCC.