Temporal Clonal Tracing and Functional Perturbation Reveal Niche-Adaptive and Tumor-Intrinsic IFNγ Dependencies Driving Ovarian Cancer Metastasis

Metastasis is an emergent continuum, driven by evolving reciprocal adaptations between continuously disseminating tumor cells (DTCs) and the specialized metastatic niches of distant organs. The interplay between intrinsic and niche-driven mechanisms that enables DTCs to survive and home to distant organs remains incompletely understood. Here, using MetTag, a single-cell barcoding and transcriptome profiling approach with time-stamped batch identifiers (BC.IDs), we mapped temporal, clonal dynamics of DTCs and the immune cell landscape across ovarian cancer metastatic niches. Deep sequencing of barcodes revealed preferred enrichment of early-disseminated clones across metastatic niches. Mechanistically, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) coupled with velocity analyses in ascites and metastasis-bearing omenta uncovered an emergent, distinct interferon-gamma (IFNγ) centric transcriptional trajectory, enriched among early seeding clones. Moreover, in vivo CRISPR/Cas9 screening of metastatic niche-specific signatures demonstrated that genes belonging to the ascites IFNγ signature, including Marco , Gbp2b, and Slfn1, are functionally important for peritoneal metastasis. Knockout of IFNγ receptor 1 ( Ifngr1 ) in tumor cells significantly reduced metastatic burden and extended survival, underscoring the importance of tumor cell intrinsic IFNγ signaling in ovarian cancer metastasis. Furthermore, we identified that the tumor intrinsic IFNγ response and ascites-derived tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) protect cancer cells from anoikis-mediated death within the IFNγ-rich ascites environment. Our study resolves temporal dynamics of disseminating tumor cells and highlights an ascites-driven, IFNγ program as a necessary pro-metastatic adaptation in the ovarian metastasis cascade.