Fig. 4

Identification of specific subpopulations of tissue stem cells in ATC-GM. a The spatial distribution of different subpopulations in indicated pathological areas. Left: Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining of representative tissue sections; right: Unbiased clustering of ST spots and defined cell types of each subpopulation in the corresponding tissue sections. b tSNE (up) and UMAP (down) plots of subpopulations from primary ATC, ATC-LM and ATC-GM samples. Each subpopulation is shown in a different color. Differentially expressed gene RNA-sequencing analysis between ATC and ATC-LM and between ATC and ATC-GM. c Heatmap showing the differentially expressed genes between ATC and ATC-LM (left), and ATC and ATC-GM (right); d Venn diagram showing the overlapped genes described in (c). e Spatial feature plots of gene expression of PKHD1L1 and TACSTD2 in tissue sections. f 2-plex immunofluorescence staining of human primary ATC, ATC-LM, and ATC-GM tissues: Top: Representative immunofluorescence staining of CD44 (red), DAPI (blue), and PKHD1L1 (green), in individual and merged channels are shown; Bottom: Statistical differences in different fluorescence intensities or their merge rates. g 2-plex immunofluorescence staining of human primary GC, and GC-LM tissues: Top: Representative immunofluorescence staining of CD44 (red), DAPI (blue), and PKHD1L1 (green), in individual and merged channels are shown; Bottom: Statistical differences in different fluorescence intensities or their merge rates. ATC anaplastic thyroid cancer, GC gastric cancer, GM gastric metastasis, LM lymphatic metastasis