"Nature" tumor 3D spatial transcriptome: "healthy" cells around cancer cells have long been "cancerous"

Knowing which cells give rise to which parts of the cancer can improve our understanding of how a tumor grows and develops, including how it undergoes genetic changes over time

Current techniques for studying tumor cytogenetics involve taking samples from cancerous areas and analyzing the DNA of these cells

In a new study, funded by Cancer Research UK, published in the journal Nature, researchers used spatial transcriptomics to create cross-sectional maps of the entire prostate, including areas of healthy and cancerous cells

Alastair Lamb, of the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences at the University of Oxford, who co-led the research, said: "Prostate tissue is three-dimensional and, like most organs that are potentially carcinogenic, we still have a lot to learn about what cellular changes lead to Cancer, and where does it start

Professor Joakim Lundeberg, from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, said: "Mapping thousands of tissue regions in a single experiment is an unprecedented way to eliminate the heterogeneity of a tumor and its microenvironment

In addition, the researchers analyzed 150,000 regions in three prostates, two breast cancers, some skin, one lymph node, and some brain tissue, and developed an algorithm to track populations of cells with similar genetic changes at their precise locations

Protein, whole-transcriptome co-localization/co-detection and spatial morphological analysis on one slide! Get technical information and learn about the power of Visium Spatial Proteomics at 10x

Spatially resolved clonal copy number alterations in benign and malignant tissue