High-Risk Rhabdomyosarcomas Feature a Convergent Cell State.

High-risk rhabdomyosarcomas exhibit a shared convergent cell state with neural features, regardless of FOXO1 fusion status.

• Why it matters: Understanding the cellular basis of high-risk disease can improve prognostic accuracy and identify new therapeutic targets, addressing gaps in current molecular classifications.
• What they did: Single-cell transcriptomics, chromatin accessibility, spatial transcriptomics, and perturbation studies were used to analyze cancer cells from childhood rhabdomyosarcoma samples, revealing a common high-risk cell state.
• The result: This convergent cell state, partially independent of FOXO1 fusion effects, suggests a unified disease phenotype that may enhance target discovery and influence clinical strategies.