Cancer Cell: Molecular Atlas of Small Cell Lung Cancer Reveals Unusual Cell Types

Imagine you are on a cross-country trip, stopping at some sights along the way to admire the local sights

Until recently, cancer researchers were like transnational travelers with only a few maps of popular cities

The Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) was created to change this

After years of arduous research, the first such map for small cell lung cancer drawn by researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is now ready, and it is full of new insights

"The most exciting thing we found is that there is a rare group of stem cell-like cells in these tumors, which are closely related to the patient's prognosis," explained Charles Rudin, an internal medicine scientist at MSK.

Not only that, these stem cell-like cells also have metastatic properties—meaning they are easy to spread—researchers have found them in many SCLC tumors, and these tumors are very different in other ways

"This is a huge surprise," said Dana Pe'er, a computational biologist at MSK

Small cell lung cancer is one of the deadliest cancers

A cooperative effort led to a new discovery

The establishment of this map requires years of cooperation between two teams with very different fields of expertise: one is a clinician like Dr.

Dr.

Dr.

By applying scRNAseq to SCLC tumor specimens obtained from MSK patients, Dr.

"We can't find these cells through batch sequencing," she said

Targeting molecular changes

Single-cell technology also allows the research team to go one step further

"PLCG2 did not impress me at first because it is related to regulating the number of stem cells," said Dr.

But in fact, PLCG2 seems to play an important role

Researchers believe that these cells with high plcg2 may be part of the reason for the aggressiveness of SCLC
.
If so, it may open up new possibilities for treatment
.

Dr.
Ruding said: "Our idea is that if we can develop strategies to selectively target this cell population, we may be able to inhibit metastasis and ultimately improve the prognosis of patients with small cell lung cancer
.
"

"What we really want to do is try to stop the transfer," Dr.
Pell added
.
"But to do this, we need to better understand these rare cell populations, it seems they are driving this process
.
That is the goal of this atlas
.
"

DOI

10.
1016/j.
ccell.
2021.
09.
008

Article title

Signatures of plasticity, metastasis, and immunosuppression in an atlas of human small cell lung cancer