Fig. 1

Subcutaneous MOC-1 and MOC-2 tumor growth are reduced in CCR7 deficient mice and scRNA-seq were carried out in KO and WT tumor tissues. a and b Expression level of CCR7 in HNSCC based on TCGA. c Subcutaneous tumor formation in CCR7 deficient (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice. d Compared to the WT tumor-bearing mice implanted with MOC-2 cells, the tumor growth in KO mice was significantly reduced. e Compared to the WT tumor-bearing mice implanted with MOC-1 cells, the tumor growth in KO mice was significantly reduced. (Student’s t-test, KO: n = 5, WT: n = 5, ***P < 0.001). f Flow chart describes the scRNA-seq process. Tumor obtained from KO and WT mice are dissociated into single cells, captured in 10 × genomic platform for library construction and RNA sequencing. g InferCNV R pakage was used to distinguish benign and malignant cells. h 25 clusters were defined as specific cell types by Single R package and visualized by t-SNE. i Eight main cell types were identified by Seurat R package and visualized by t-SNE. j Immunohistochemistry shows the expression of CCR7 in tumor specimens of KO and WT group mice implanted with MOC-1 or MOC-2 cells