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Herein, we analyzed the transcriptional profile of brain metastasis initiating cells (BMICs) at two distinct stages of the brain metastatic cascade\u2014the \u201cpremetastatic\u201d or early stage when they first colonize the brain and the established macrometastatic stage. RNA sequencing was used to obtain the transcriptional profiles of premetastatic and macrometastatic (non-premetastatic) lung, breast, and melanoma BMICs. We identified that lung, breast, and melanoma premetastatic BMICs share a common transcriptomic signature that is distinct from their non-premetastatic counterparts. Importantly, we show that premetastatic BMICs exhibit increased expression of HLA-G, which we further demonstrate functions in an HLA-G\/SPAG9\/STAT3 axis to promote the establishment of brain metastatic lesions. Our findings suggest that unraveling the molecular landscape of premetastatic BMICs allows for the identification of clinically relevant targets that can possibly inform the development of preventive and\/or more efficacious BM therapies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2205247120","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,13]],"date-time":"2023-02-13T15:11:51Z","timestamp":1676301111000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.cm10313","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":17,"title":["An HLA-G\/SPAG9\/STAT3 axis promotes brain metastases"],"prefix":"10.1073","volume":"120","author":[{"given":"Blessing Iquo","family":"Bassey-Archibong","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Surgery, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Chirayu","family":"Rajendra Chokshi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, 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