InquiryThe tumor microenvironment (TME) is the internal environment in which tumor cells arise and live. It includes not only the tumor cells themselves, but also various cells such as fibroblasts, immune and inflammatory cells, and glial cells, which are closely associated with the tumor cells. It also includes intercellular stroma, microvasculature, and biomolecules infiltrating the adjacent area.
TME is heterogeneous and plays a key role in tumorigenesis, metastasis, and drug resistance. With the rise of immunotherapies for the treatment of multiple tumors in basic research and clinical oncology, the complexity of TME has become an urgent issue in drug resistance mechanism studies and biomarker-driven drug discovery.
How we use spatial omics to explain the complexity of TME
Traditionally, immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization have been the tools of choice for revealing spatial gene expression in tissue sections. However, the throughput of these procedures is limited to analyzing only a few genes at a time. Now, CD Genomics can provide our customers with more information about TME based on spatial omics techniques. By combining high-throughput imaging and sequencing technologies, we can examine the expression of the cancer transcriptome in cancer biopsy samples. This allows our clients to examine individual cells in detail without losing information about their location each other, preserving spatial context very well.
Figure 1. Spatial transcriptomics and proteomics technologies for deconvoluting the TME. (Wang N., et al., 2021)
What our clients get
- Assess cells in the tumor microenvironment.
- Reveal previously unappreciated levels of cancer and immune cell heterogeneity.
- Characterize regions of cancer in whole tissue sections to inform subsequent studies.
- Obtain unbiased, genome-wide gene expression patterns from tens of thousands of cells.
- Identify molecular profiles associated with immune cell activation and failure.
- Help identify new prognostic biomarkers.
A wide range of applications and advantages of the services we offer
- Combine transcriptional profiling with cellular location to reveal genes important for regulating cell-to-cell interactions and killing tumor cells.
- Deepen understanding of how cellular interactions shape cellular identity and function by analyzing all gene expressions in the context of cancer tissue.
- High-resolution, unbiased visualization, and quantification of gene and protein expression in tissues to extract the maximum amount of information from a limited number of patient samples.
- Determine the expression of checkpoint molecules and other response biomarkers and amplify activity in TME to gather more dynamics.
We do it better
The tumor microenvironment has long been a critical and central direction in oncology research. CD Genomics combines histology and sequencing by providing spatial genomic, spatial transcriptomic, and spatial proteomic analysis, enabling our clients to study the tumor microenvironment in situ and understand the impact of immune cells on cancer progression. This deepens our clients' knowledge of the processes of tumorigenesis, progression, and metastasis, but also provides important information for tumor diagnosis, prevention, and prognosis.
Reference
- Wang N., et al., (2021). "Spatial transcriptomics and proteomics technologies for deconvoluting the tumor microenvironment." Biotechnology Journal, 16, e2100041.
