Fig. 5: Analysis of shared clonotypes and T-cell receptor (TCR) clonal variations between metastatic and primary colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.

A Pie chart showing the distribution of shared clonotypes across TCR repertoires. Each color represents a different TCR chain. B Scatter plot illustrating the consistency of clone fractions for shared clonotypes between metastatic (MT, from primary sites with distant metastasis) and primary (PT, from primary sites without distant metastasis) CRC patients. Each dot represents an individual clonotype. “R” indicates the Pearson correlation coefficient, and p values were derived from two-sided t-tests. C Bar plot showing the distribution of clone frequency changes by TCR chain. The x-axis represents the log2 fold change in clone frequency between MT and PT samples. D, E Bubble plots showing differences in V (D) and J (E) gene usages between MT and PT patients. The y-axis represents the log2 fold change in gene representation. TCR chains are color-coded. F Heatmap showing V–J combination patterns in MT versus PT patients: (left) TCR β (TRB), (middle) TCR δ (TRD), and (right) TCR γ (TRG). Red indicates higher usage in MT. G Scatter plot showing the correlation between shared clone count and tumor size, categorized by TCR type. Each point represents an individual sample. “R” represents Pearson correlation, with p values obtained by t-tests. H Volcano plot highlighting differences in shared clonotypes between MT and PT patients. Clonotypes are categorized based on log2 fold change (|log2(FC)| >2) into stable, contracted, or expanded. “Stable” indicates no significant change, “contracted” denotes higher abundance in PT, and “expanded” indicates greater prevalence in MT. The stacked bar plot on the right shows the relative distribution of these categories. I Density plot showing the distribution of contracted, expanded, and stable clonotypes by log2 fold change. J Stacked bar plot showing the relative distribution of stable, contracted, and expanded clonotypes across different TCR chains (TRB, TRD, TRG). K Density plot illustrating the distribution of clone frequency changes between MT and PT patients along the log2 fold change axis. L Bar plot showing the top ten clonotypes with the highest abundance in the contracted and expanded categories. M Scatter plot showing the relationship between the clone sizes of expanded clonotypes in MT and PT patients. Each dot represents an individual expanded clonotype. “R” indicates the Pearson correlation coefficient, with p values obtained by t-test.