Nasopharyngeal carcinoma joins the single-cell party

摘要

Next-generation sequencing has revolutionized cancer research, providing large-scale molecular characterizations for all common cancer types and contributing to personalized medicine through understanding of inter-tumor heterogeneity [1,2]. Exemplified by the cancer genome atlas (TCGA), these studies uncovered driver mutations and divided each cancer type into subtypes with distinct molecular features and clinical characteristics, such as survival and treatment response [3]. However, these studies, which largely considered each tumor as an individual “bulk” sample, are insufficient for characterizing the diversity of cells within a tumor. Such diversity includes the various immune and stromal cell types as well as the multitude of cellular states among neoplastic cells, which collectively underlie tumor biology and clinical behavior.