Single-cell transcriptional profiling in osteosarcoma and the effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on the tumor microenvironment

Osteosarcoma (OS), a malignant tumor, originates from the bone marrow. Currently, treatment for OS remains limited, making it urgent to understand the immune response in the tumor microenvironment of patients with OS. A comprehensive bioinformatics analysis was performed, including cell clustering subgroups, differential expression genes screening, proposed temporal order, and genomic variant analysis on single-cell RNA-sequencing data, from ten pre-chemotherapy patients and eleven post-chemotherapy patients. Subsequently, we analyzed the differentiation trajectories of osteoblasts, osteoclasts, fibroblasts, myeloid cells, and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in detail to compare the changes in cell proportions and differential genes pre- and post-chemotherapy. The nine cell types were identified, including fibroblasts, myeloid cells, osteoblasts, TILs, osteoclasts, proliferative osteoblasts, pericytes, endothelial cells, and B cells. Post-chemotherapy treatment, the proportions of myeloid cells and TILs in OS were declined, while the number of osteoblasts was elevated. Besides, a decrease was observed in CD74, FTL, FTH1, MT1X and MT2A, and an increase in PTN, COL3A1, COL1A1, IGFBP7 and FN1. Meanwhile, EMT, DNA repair, G2M checkpoint, and E2F targets were highly enriched post-chemotherapy. Furthermore, there was a down-regulation in the proportions of CD14 monocytes, Tregs, NK cells and CD1C-/CD141-DCs, while an up-regulation was observed in the proportions of SELENOP macrophages, IL7R macrophages, COL1A1 macrophages, CD1C DCs, CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells. Overall, these findings revealed changes in the tumor microenvironment of OS post-chemotherapy treatment, providing a new direction for investigating OS treatment.