# Pan-cancer T cell atlas links a cellular stress response state to immunotherapy resistance

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-chu-pan-cancer-t-cell-atlas-nat-med-2023/  
OnCo record `paper-chu-pan-cancer-t-cell-atlas-nat-med-2023` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A map of T cells from more than 300,000 single-cell readings across 16 cancer types, which found a stressed T-cell state that was more common in tumours that did not respond to immunotherapy.

## Summary

A single-cell atlas of T cells from 308,048 transcriptomes across 16 cancer types identified previously undescribed states, including a stress response state (TSTR) marked by heat shock gene expression, detectable in situ mostly within lymphocyte aggregates or potential tertiary lymphoid structures (Nature Medicine 2023). T-cell states were correlated with genomic, pathological and clinical features in 375 patients from 23 cohorts, 171 of whom received immune checkpoint blockade (Nature Medicine 2023).

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-11-05
- Journal: Nature Medicine
- Year: 2023
- DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02371-y
- Authors: Chu Y, Dai E, Li Y, et al.; Yee C, Wang L.
- Findings: Single-cell atlas of 308,048 T-cell transcriptomes across 16 cancer types.; Identified a heat shock stress response T-cell state, TSTR, detectable in tumour tissue across cancer types.; Heat shock gene expression in intratumoral CD4/CD8+ cells was significantly upregulated after immune checkpoint blockade, particularly in non-responsive tumours.
- What it means: A reference map of tumour T cells, with a candidate state linked to resistance that could inform T-cell therapy and biomarker work.
- Caveats: The link between the stress state and resistance is an association; the authors describe a potential role.

## Sources

- DOI 10.1038/s41591-023-02371-y: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02371-y
- PubMed 37248301: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37248301/

## Connected records

- institutions: [MD Anderson Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/md-anderson/)
- terms: [Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq, 10x Chromium)](https://onco.cc/terms/single-cell-rna-seq/)
- people: [Cassian Yee](https://onco.cc/people/cassian-yee/)
- journals: [Nature Medicine](https://onco.cc/journals/nature-medicine/)

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