Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) organoids have similar genomic and functional characteristics to the original specimens. They have become a novel and promising tumor model. However, systematic research of heterogeneity and evolution based on tumor organoids and unbiased evaluation of CD4+ T cell-mediated tumor recognition is presently lacking. Here, we study the variability in genomic characterization and single-cell transcriptome between different tumor organoid clones derived from the same CRC patient. While clone-specific differences in driver gene mutations and cancer stem cell (CSC) subpopulations were observed, inter-clone heterogeneity was even more prevalent. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, we found that compared with bulk organoids, CRC organoid clones are mainly composed of cancer stem cells and transiently-amplifying cells (TACs), but no epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-like (S100A4+CDH1-) cells. In addition, we study the phenotypic characteristics and TCR properties of tumor-reactive CD4+ T cells by coupling the organoid-TILs co-culture model, single-cell profiling, and recognition testing of candidate TCRs. We found that the proliferating CD4+ T cells increased significantly from 7.1% to 35.4%, and the TCR clonotypes increased from 110 to 1043 after co-culture with organoids. Moreover, 4 of 10 (40%) candidate TCRs with a significant increase in clone abundance exhibited tumor recognition. These results provide evidence that the proliferating CD4+ T cells with clonal expansion after co-culture with tumor organoids are the potential tumor-reactive T cells. Collectively, we reconstructed intra-patient heterogeneity in single cell-derived organoid models and characterized the phenotypic characteristics and functional properties of tumor-reactive CD4+ T cells.