Oncology Abstracts

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that can be classified into a number of molecular subtypes that predict prognosis and influence clinical treatment. Cellular heterogeneity is also evident within breast cancers and plays a key role in their development, evolution and metastatic progression. How clinical heterogeneity relates to cellular heterogeneity is poorly understood. We have approached this question using single-cell RNA-Seq on 1000s of individual cells from well-e...

The cellular and molecular basis of stromal cell recruitment, activation and crosstalk in carcinomas is poorly understood, limiting the development of targeted anti-stromal therapies. In mouse models of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), Hedgehog ligand produced by neoplastic cells reprograms cancer-associated fibroblast (CAF) to provide a supportive niche for the acquisition of a chemo-resistant, cancer stem cell (CSC) phenotype via FGF5 expression and production ...

Tumour cell heterogeneity constitutes a challenge for cancer treatment and deeply impact the outcome of patients. A simultaneous overview of cancer cells and associated stromal cells is critical for the design of improved therapeutic regimes. Single-cell RNA-seq has emerged as a powerful method to unravel heterogeneity of complex biological systems; this has enabled in vivo characterization of cell type compositions through unsupervised sampling and modelling of trans...