Discussions

Single-cell sequencing technologies provide revolutionary tools for analyzing a single cell's gene expression, DNA variation, epigenetic state, and nuclear structure, thus improving the understanding of the molecular mechanisms for carcinogenesis and tumor progression.

Single-cell sequencing allows the comprehensive and precise analysis of genome, transcriptome, and epigenome at single-cell resolution, which provides a better understanding of cellular heterogeneity and function in the context of its microenvironment. Especially, single-cell sequencing technologies provide powerful tools for tumor research, improving the understanding of intratumor heterogeneity, tumor microenvironment, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance. For example, carcinogenesis is a multistep and multifactorial process in which many types of tumor cells are formed, including primary tumor cells, metastatic tumor cells, cancer stem cells, circulating tumor cells, and disseminated tumor cells. Single-cell sequencing technologies can be used to investigate the cellular composition of primary tumor tissues and profile individual cancer cells from transcriptome, genome, and epigenome aspects, thereby deeply revealing the pathological mechanisms of tumors.