Single-cell analysis to prioritize therapeutic
targets for genetically-distinct subtypes of
colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) could be classified into two genetically-distinct subtypes based on the mutations arising during DNA replication or damage: mismatch repair-deficient (MMRd) and mismatch repair-proficient (MMRp). While patients with MMRd CRC display high response rate to immunotherapy, patients with MMRp CRC are mostly unresponsive to immunotherapy. Here, to further explore the possible molecular mechanism underlying the discrepancies in immunotherapy responses between the two distinct subtypes of CRC, we revisitted a public single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNAseq) dataset profiling colorectal tumors and adjacent normal tissues of 28 MMRp and 34 MMRd individuals. We specifically looked into tumour epithelial cells, epithelial cells containing mutations, and CD8+ T cells, anticancer immune response cells, and found IGF2, TLR-4 and EP300 gene respectively to be potential targets to improve immunotherapy response of CRC MMRp patients.