Abstract PO-097: High resolution analysis of clonal dynamics using lineage tracing and single cell transcriptomics

The immense evolutionary capacity of cancer poses major challenges to current therapeutic efforts, and results from the vast clonal heterogeneity and ability of individual cancer cells to adapt to diverse selective pressures. More complete mechanistic understanding of the basis of therapeutic resistance has been limited by difficulties in coupling genetic identity of cells to their respective transcriptomic and functional outputs. To this end, we developed a novel high-complexity expressed barcode system, ClonMapper, that integrates DNA barcoding with single-cell RNA-sequencing and clonal isolation to characterize thousands of clones within a mixed cancer cellpopulation. In applying this system to breast cancer and B cell cancer cell lines in the setting of resistance to doxorubicin and fludarabine-based chemotherapy, we discover pretreatment sub-populations with distinct expression profiles that not only confer distinct treatment survivorship trajectories, but also provide the basis for long-term clonal equilibrium between co-existing clones in the absence of treatment. These data reveal the diverse clonal characteristics and therapeutic responses of a heterogeneous cancer cell population and highlight the unprecedented resolution that can be achieved using ClonMapper. Citation Format: Eric A. Brenner, Daylin Morgan, Aziz Al9Khafaji, Catherine Gutierrez, Catherine J. Wu, Amy Brock. High resolution analysis of clonal dynamics using lineage tracing and single cell transcriptomics [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Special Conference on Tumor Heterogeneity: From Single Cells to Clinical Impact; 2020 Sep 17-18. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(21 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-097.