Single‐cell landscape of malignant ascites from patients with metastatic colorectal cancer

(D) Differential gene expression reveals significantly up-regulated and down-regulated genes in 11 cell types between PD and SD patients. (G) Dot plots show communication probability of the interactions between cell populations in pmCRC ascites (The dot size is proportional to the contribution score computed from pattern recognition analysis.). Differentially expressed genes and gene ontology (GO) analyses showed that the “cell-cell adhesion”, “inflammatory response”, and “cytokine production” were differentially enriched between primary tumors and ascites (Supplementary Figure S1D), which implied that the liquid state of ascites changed the functions of the fibroblast populations. Because the expression pattern of the “M2” marker gene CD163 perfectly coincided with that of LAIR1 in all sub-clusters (Figure 1M), we postulated that the immunosuppressive function of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) might be exerted via LAIR1.