The landscape mapping of single-cell sequencing in the research progression and hotspots of liver cancer based on systematical analysis.

BACKGROUND: Single-cell sequencing technology is a new research method which is greatly applied to the pathogenesis and clinical research of liver cancer. The aim of the study is to map the research levels, research hotspots, and progressive trends in the field of single-cell sequencing on liver cancer. METHODS: The articles related to liver cancer and single-cell sequencing were collected from Web of Science Core Collection database, and then bibliometric methods including CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and the R package Bibliometric were conducted to analyze the knowledge mapping of nation, instruction, author, reference and keyword as well as their relationships. RESULTS: 379 articles about single-cell sequencing on liver cancer were collected between 2017 and March 2024, and the number of articles is still significantly rising. China and its domestic institutions are the hot areas for this research field, and establishing extensive cooperative relationships. The most cited journals are still authoritative journals such as Cell and Hepatology. The co-citation relationships among journals revealed that different journals focus on various research content. The hot keywords in recent years are hepatocellular carcinoma and single-cell RNA sequencing, whereas each time period has different research keywords. The highly cited and strong citation burst references are "Landscape of Infiltrating T Cells in Liver Cancer Revealed by Single-Cell Sequencing" published by Zhang et al which provided a seminal framework for subsequent research in the field. CONCLUSION: The comprehensive overview of the current status and trends of research on single-cell sequencing on liver cancer will prove beneficial for the progression of this field.