Androgen receptor signaling at the tumor-immune interface in castration-resistant prostate cancer: single-cell transcriptomic analysis with AR-V7-related RT-qPCR context

Background Androgen receptor splice-variant 7 (AR-V7) is associated with treatment resistance in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), whereas its relationship with the tumor-immune microenvironment remains incompletely defined. Methods We performed secondary scRNA-seq analysis of the public CRPC dataset GSE137829 using Seurat-based preprocessing, dimensionality reduction, cell annotation, trajectory inference, SCENIC analysis, pathway enrichment analysis, and CellPhoneDB analysis. Because the public dataset does not provide validated AR-V7 status at the patient or single-cell level, it was not used for AR-V7-positive versus AR-V7-negative classification. RT-qPCR in 22Rv1 and LNCaP cells was retained as supportive analysis of selected AR-associated genes. Results The single-cell dataset demonstrated substantial epithelial, immune, and stromal heterogeneity in CRPC and supported analysis of AR-associated transcriptional states and candidate regulatory programs. RT-qPCR showed higher KLK3, STEAP2, HOXB13, and NKX3-1 expression in 22Rv1 than in LNCaP cells; these differences are interpreted as supportive AR-associated observations rather than AR-V7-specific mechanistic validation. Conclusion The revised study provides an exploratory transcriptomic characterization of AR-associated cellular states in CRPC. The findings are hypothesis-generating and do not establish AR-V7-specific causality or clinical prediction. Functional perturbation studies and datasets with directly measured AR-V7 status are required.