Huang Ruo Han, Wang Le Xin, He Jing, Gao Wen
Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, 300 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing, 210029, China.
Biomark Res. 2021 Dec 11;9(1):88. doi: 10.1186/s40364-021-00336-2.
Cancer is an intricate disease with inherent intra-tumor heterogeneity at the cellular level because of genetic changes and environmental differences. Cellular heterogeneity exists even within the same tumor type. Small deviations in a genome or transcriptome can lead to significant differences in function. Conventional bulk population sequencing, which produces admixed populations of cells, can only provide an average expression signal for one cell population, ignoring differences between individual cells. Important advances in sequencing have been made in recent years. Single cell sequencing starts in a single cell, thereby increasing our capability to characterize intratumor heterogeneity. This technology has been used to analyze genetic variation, specific metabolic activity, and evolutionary processes in tumors, which may help us understand tumor occurrence and development and improve our understanding of the tumor microenvironment. In addition, it provides a theoretical basis for the development of clinical treatments, especially for personalized medicine. In this article, we briefly introduce Single cell sequencing technology, summarize the application of Single cell sequencing to study the tumor microenvironment, as well as its therapeutic application in different clinical procedures.
癌症是一种复杂的疾病，由于基因变化和环境差异，在细胞水平上具有内在的肿瘤内异质性。即使在同一肿瘤类型中也存在细胞异质性。基因组或转录组中的微小偏差可能导致功能上的显著差异。传统的大量群体测序产生混合的细胞群体，只能为一个细胞群体提供平均表达信号，而忽略了单个细胞之间的差异。近年来测序技术取得了重要进展。单细胞测序从单个细胞开始，从而增强了我们表征肿瘤内异质性的能力。这项技术已被用于分析肿瘤中的基因变异、特定代谢活性和进化过程，这可能有助于我们了解肿瘤的发生和发展，并增进我们对肿瘤微环境的理解。此外，它为临床治疗的发展，特别是个性化医疗，提供了理论基础。在本文中，我们简要介绍单细胞测序技术，总结单细胞测序在研究肿瘤微环境中的应用及其在不同临床程序中的治疗应用。
