Fig. 9

Workflow of this project. In this work, we combined bioinformatic analysis and experimental validation to explore the biological properties of MFAP5 + fibroblasts, with specially emphasize on its interactions with tumor-infiltrating C1QC + macrophages and other myeloid cells in CRC TME. scRNA-seq (n = 6 pairs, tumor core, border, and adjacent normal tissues), ST (n = 4, tumor tissues) and public cohort (COAD: n = 285, READ: n = 93, GSE14333: n = 226, GSE17536: n = 177) were integrated for comprehensive analyses of MFAP5 + fibroblasts at diverse perspective. Then, IHC (n = 35 pairs, tumor and normal tissues) was used to explore the existence of MFAP5 + fibroblasts as well as its correlation with clinical prognosis. mIHC (n = 3 pairs, tumor and normal tissues) was applied for investigating the crosstalk between MFAP5 + fibroblasts and C1QC + macrophages in patients with CRC