Fig. 7: Radiation-induced LTR–RNA sensor pathway in oesophageal cancer tissues.

a Experimental design. Pre, before radiotherapy; RT, after radiotherapy. b Expression of immune-related LTRs in oesophageal tissue, as determined by scRNA-seq. The heatmap is based on the average positive ratio of the indicated LTRs in each sample. c UMAP of cell clusters in the Pre and RT samples. d Bubble chart of the percentage of cells within the indicated cell cluster expressing the indicated LTRs and immune-active marker genes and the average gene expression level. A larger dot indicates a higher percentage of cells expressing a particular LTR/gene, and a darker dot colour indicates a higher average expression level of the LTR/gene. e Morphology of the 10x Visium slide (left), spatial expression of the epithelial marker KRT5 (middle-left) and the immune-active marker STAT1 (middle-right), and manual annotation of hot and cold sites (right). f Morphology of hot and cold sites. g Expression of KRT5, RIG-I, IRF7 and PD-L1 in hot and cold sites (****p < 1 × 10⁻¹⁶, Bonferroni-adjusted Wilcoxon test; ns no significance). h Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between hot and cold sites. DEGs were defined as those for which p < 0.05 (Bonferroni-adjusted Wilcoxon test) and fold change >2. i GO enrichment analysis of the DEGs identified in hot sites.