Ezequiel Lacunza

and 13 more

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 gene expression in KS lesions from a comparatively small number of samples, relatively to other neoplastic diseases. Given the heterogeneity of KS, to obtain a fuller picture, we sought to expand the cohorts. 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.