Fig. 5

Characterization of the CD69⁺ HSC-like cell subpopulation potentially conferring chemoresistance. a Heatmap displaying differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in pre-therapy HSC-like populations between resistant cases (P105 and P116) and sensitive cases (P115, P106, P118, P119, and P120). b Bar plot presenting representative suppressed biological functions enriched by DEGs in panel a using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA). c GSEA plots showing the enrichment of quiescence, proliferation, adhesion (KEGG term: cell adhesion molecules), and migration (KEGG term: leukocyte transendothelial migration) signatures in HSC-like cells from resistant cases compared to sensitive cases. d Dot plots of normalized expression of differentially expressed surface marker genes between resistant and sensitive cases. Dot size represents the proportion of cells expressing a gene in a patient’s HSC-like cell population, and shading indicates the relative expression level. e Violin plots depicting CD69 expression in HSC-like populations from patients and HSC populations from healthy donors. f Regulatory network showing upstream regulators and their targets predicted to be activated or suppressed in HSC-like cells from resistant cases. Colors indicate increased (red) or decreased (green) gene expression relative to sensitive cases. Red and blue lines represent known activating or inhibitory effects, respectively, between each regulator and its targets