{
  "abstract": "Background: Colorectal cancer liver metastasis (CRLM) is a major cause of mortality in colorectal cancer (CRC) and develops within a heterogeneous tumor microenvironment (TME). How immune, stromal, and metabolic programs differ between primary CRC and matched liver metastases remains incompletely resolved.\n\nMethods: We analyzed publicly available single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from GSE178318 (15 specimens from six patients: six primary CRC samples, six matched liver metastases, and three peripheral-blood mononuclear cell samples) together with bulk RNA-seq data from GSE50760 (54 samples from 18 patients spanning normal colon, primary CRC, and liver metastasis). The single-cell workflow included quality control, score-based cell-type annotation, patient-level pseudobulk differential expression, pathway/module scoring, ligand-receptor co-expression analysis, and diffusion-map pseudotime. Bulk data were assessed using within-patient paired comparisons, co-expression analysis, and program-level scoring. Benjamini-Hochberg false-discovery-rate (FDR) correction was applied for multiple testing.\n\nResults: After quality control, 132,915 single cells were retained. Liver metastases showed higher patient-level T/NK-cell fractions and lower malignant epithelial and B/plasma-cell fractions than primary tumors. In paired single-cell pseudobulk analysis, no gene remained significant at the prespecified FDR threshold, although nominal differences suggested extracellular-matrix and metabolic changes. Glycolysis scores were modestly higher and oxidative-phosphorylation scores modestly lower in liver metastases, whereas inflammatory and glycolytic scores were not correlated at the patient-tissue level. Ligand-receptor co-expression was strongest for MIF-CD74, VIM-CD44, and HLA-A-CD8A, with CAF/stromal and myeloid/TAM populations showing high aggregate outgoing scores. Diffusion pseudotime showed increasing EMT/invasion scores and decreasing glycolysis along the inferred transcriptomic ordering; this ordering is descriptive and not a longitudinal lineage. In the bulk cohort, 654 genes differed between liver metastasis and primary tumor, while cross-platform rank concordance was weak (Spearman rho=0.106).\n\nConclusions: Public single-cell and bulk datasets support compartment-associated differences in cellular composition and transcriptional programs in CRLM, with prominent stromal, myeloid, and metabolic features. However, limited patient numbers, cross-sectional sampling, weak cross-platform concordance, and the absence of experimental validation mean that the ligand-receptor and trajectory findings should be interpreted as hypothesis-generating rather than causal or clinically validated.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Maanshan People's Hospital, No. 45, Hubei Road, Maanshan, Anhui, 243000, China",
    "Department of General Surgery, Wuhu Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, No. 430, Jiuhua South Road, Wuhu, Anhui, 241000, China",
    "Department of Anesthesiology and Surgery, Maanshan People's Hospital, No. 45, Hubei Road, Maanshan, Anhui, 243000, China"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 7,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Zhen Ma"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Wen Jiang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Jian Zhang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Lingyu Kong"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Conghao Zhao"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Fang Ma"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Chenliang Wu"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/52bhej2f0kfbv.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1016/j.tranon.2026.103077",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13717104/",
  "id": "52bhej2f0kfbv",
  "issns": [
    "1936-5233"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranon.2026.103077",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Original Research"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1312|Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7223107999",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC13717104",
  "pmid": "42906454",
  "published": "2026-10-21",
  "publisher": "Neoplasia Press",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/52bhej2f0kfbv.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:21:29Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13717104",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranon.2026.103077"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biochemistry",
      "origin": "openalex:1312|Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics",
      "subfield": "molecular-biology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Single-cell and bulk transcriptomic analysis of inflammation-metabolism programs and the tumor microenvironment of colorectal cancer liver metastasis",
  "title_text": "Single-cell and bulk transcriptomic analysis of inflammation-metabolism programs and the tumor microenvironment of colorectal cancer liver metastasis",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-02T12:21:29Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/52bhej2f0kfbv",
  "venue": "Translational Oncology",
  "versions": []
}