Fig. 1: GPRC5A overexpression in early lung DCCs confers a trophoblast-like tumor implantation phenotype.

a The experimental timeline outlines the isolation of metastatic cancer cells from the lungs of mice following intravenous injection at specified timepoints: 6 hours (n = 3), 48 hours (n = 16), 77 days (n = 6), and 145 days (n = 1), for subsequent single-cell RNA sequencing. This figure is drawn by figdraw.com. b t-SNE plots reveal the distribution of isolated lung metastatic cancer cells across various timepoints: 0 hour, 6 hours, 48 hours, 77 days, and 145 days (n = 9059, 1957, 1149, 3322, 4499, respectively). c A heatmap illustrates 116 significant stage-specific genes identified across the five timepoints, based on fold change (FC) in expression (P value < 0.05), determined by a two-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test. d Selected representative genes from Modules A, B, C, and D are shown. e Gene Ontology (GO) Biological Process (BP) analysis highlights top-level items enriched in Module B genes, utilizing a two-sided permutation test (P value < 0.05). f A schematic diagram compares embryo implantation and tumor implantation, underscoring shared subprocesses such as attachment, migration, invasion, and response to stimuli, which are essential for both processes. This figure is drawn by figdraw.com. g A Venn diagram depicts overlapping genes between Module B (n = 44) and stage-specific genes from trophectoderm (n = 281), primitive endoderm (n = 224), and epiblast (n = 67) during the pre-implantation, implantation, and post-implantation phases. h t-SNE plots illustrate the distribution of GPRC5A⁺ cells at five timepoints (n = 1667, 1527, 977, 786, 1635, respectively). i Representative mIF staining images depict Pan-Cytokeratin (Pan-CK, green), Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP, orange), GPRC5A (red) and DAPI (blue) from lung samples at different timepoints: 6 hours (n = 6), 48 hours (n = 6), 1 week (n = 6), 2 months (n = 5), and 4 months (n = 5). j The bar plot presents the percentages of GPRC5A⁺/Pan-CK⁺GFP⁺ lung DCCs per high power field (HPF), analyzed via two-sided one-way ANOVA test. Data are presented as mean ± SD (bar plots) and the n number represents n biologically independent spots/samples/genes in each group. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.