Tracking intratumoral heterogeneity in glioblastoma via regularized classification of single-cell RNA-Seq data

摘要

Tumor heterogeneity is a major bottleneck in cancer diagnosis and therapy, playing a critical role in cancer invasion, metastasis and therapy resistance [ ]. Glioblastoma (GBM), the most common primary brain malignancy in adults and one of the most aggressive cancers [ ], is an archetypal example of a heterogeneous cancer, exhibiting extensive cellular and molecular heterogeneity, both within and between tumors [ , ]. Current treatments combining surgery with radiotherapy and chemotherapy programs have shown to prolong survival, however, tumor recurrence usually occurs within two years [ ]. Recurrence has been mainly attributed to the diffuse nature of GBM, with infiltrating neoplastic cells originating from the tumor core spreading quickly across long distances within the brain, rendering local therapies ineffective [ ].