Abstract
Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) is an AIDS-defining cancer and a significant
global health challenge caused by Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated
herpesvirus (KSHV). NGS-based approaches have profiled KS lesions in a
minimal number of studies compared with other neoplastic diseases. Here
we present a compiled and harmonized dataset of 131 KS and non-tumor
cutaneous samples in the context of their predicted pathway activities,
immune infiltrate, KSHV and HIV gene expression profiles, and their
associated clinical data representing patient populations from
Argentina, United States (USA), and Sub-Saharan Africa cohorts. RNA-seq
data from 9 Argentinian KS lesions were generated and integrated with
previously published datasets derived from the USA and sub-Saharan
African cohorts from Tanzania, Zambia, and Uganda. Unsupervised analysis
of 131 KS-related samples allowed us to identify four KS clusters based
on their host and KSHV gene expression profiles, immune infiltrate, and
the activity of specific signaling pathways. The compiled RNA-seq
profile is shared with the research community through the UCSC Xena
browser for further visualization, download, and analysis
([https://kaposi.xenahubs.net/](https://kaposi.xenahubs.net/)).
These resources will allow biologists without bioinformatics knowledge
to explore and correlate the host and viral transcriptome in a curated
dataset of different KS RNA-seq-based cohorts, which can lead to novel
biological insights and biomarker discovery.