Biomarker-driven individualized treatment in oncology has made tremendous progress through technological developments, new therapeutic modalities and a deeper understanding of the molecular biology for tumors, cancer ...Biomarker-driven individualized treatment in oncology has made tremendous progress through technological developments, new therapeutic modalities and a deeper understanding of the molecular biology for tumors, cancer stem cells and tumor-infltrating immune cells. Recent technical developments have led to the establi-shment of a variety of cancer-related diagnostic, progno-stic and predictive biomarkers. In this regard, different modern OMICs approaches were assessed in order to categorize and classify prognostically different forms of neoplasia. Despite those technical advancements, the extent of molecular heterogeneity at the individual cell level in human tumors remains largely uncharacterized.Each tumor consists of a mixture of heterogeneous cell types. Therefore, it is important to quantify the dynamic cellular variations in order to predict clinical parameters, such as a response to treatment and or potential for disease recurrence. Recently, single-cell based methods have been developed to characterize the heterogeneity in seemingly homogenous cancer cell populations prior to and during treatment. In this review, we highlight the recent advances for single-cell analysis and discuss the challenges and prospects for molecular characterization of cancer cells, cancer stem cells and tumor-infltrating immune cells.展开更多
文摘Biomarker-driven individualized treatment in oncology has made tremendous progress through technological developments, new therapeutic modalities and a deeper understanding of the molecular biology for tumors, cancer stem cells and tumor-infltrating immune cells. Recent technical developments have led to the establi-shment of a variety of cancer-related diagnostic, progno-stic and predictive biomarkers. In this regard, different modern OMICs approaches were assessed in order to categorize and classify prognostically different forms of neoplasia. Despite those technical advancements, the extent of molecular heterogeneity at the individual cell level in human tumors remains largely uncharacterized.Each tumor consists of a mixture of heterogeneous cell types. Therefore, it is important to quantify the dynamic cellular variations in order to predict clinical parameters, such as a response to treatment and or potential for disease recurrence. Recently, single-cell based methods have been developed to characterize the heterogeneity in seemingly homogenous cancer cell populations prior to and during treatment. In this review, we highlight the recent advances for single-cell analysis and discuss the challenges and prospects for molecular characterization of cancer cells, cancer stem cells and tumor-infltrating immune cells.
