Division of Translational Genomics, Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center, National Cancer Center, Chiba, 277-8577, Japan.
Division of Cancer Immunology, Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center, National Cancer Center, Chiba, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 11;11(1):341. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-79385-w.
Single-cell level analysis is powerful tool to assess the heterogeneity of cellular components in tumor microenvironments (TME). In this study, we investigated immune-profiles using the single-cell analyses of endoscopically- or surgically-resected tumors, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from gastric cancer patients. Furthermore, we technically characterized two distinct platforms of the single-cell analysis; RNA-seq-based analysis (scRNA-seq), and mass cytometry-based analysis (CyTOF), both of which are broadly embraced technologies. Our study revealed that the scRNA-seq analysis could cover a broader range of immune cells of TME in the biopsy-resected small samples of tumors, detecting even small subgroups of B cells or Treg cells in the tumors, although CyTOF could distinguish the specific populations in more depth. These findings demonstrate that scRNA-seq analysis is a highly-feasible platform for elucidating the complexity of TME in small biopsy tumors, which would provide a novel strategies to overcome a therapeutic difficulties against cancer heterogeneity in TME.
单细胞水平分析是评估肿瘤微环境（TME）中细胞成分异质性的有力工具。在这项研究中，我们使用内窥镜或手术切除的肿瘤以及胃癌患者的外周血单核细胞进行了单细胞分析，以研究免疫特征。此外，我们从技术上对两种不同的单细胞分析平台进行了特征描述；基于 RNA 测序的分析（scRNA-seq）和基于质谱细胞术的分析（CyTOF），这两种技术都是广泛应用的技术。我们的研究表明，scRNA-seq 分析可以覆盖肿瘤活检小样本中 TME 中更广泛的免疫细胞范围，即使在肿瘤中也能检测到 B 细胞或 Treg 细胞的小亚群，尽管 CyTOF 可以更深入地区分特定群体。这些发现表明，scRNA-seq 分析是阐明小活检肿瘤中 TME 复杂性的高度可行平台，这将为克服 TME 中癌症异质性的治疗困难提供新策略。
