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Review
. 2021 May 8:21:183-206.
doi: 10.1016/j.omto.2021.04.001. eCollection 2021 Jun 25.

Single-cell RNA sequencing in cancer: Applications, advances, and emerging challenges

Guangshun Sun  1   2 , Zhouxiao Li  3 , Dawei Rong  4 , Hao Zhang  1   5 , Xuesong Shi  2 , Weijun Yang  2 , Wubin Zheng  2 , Guoqiang Sun  2 , Fan Wu  2 , Hongyong Cao  2 , Weiwei Tang  4 , Yangbai Sun  1
Affiliations
Review

Single-cell RNA sequencing in cancer: Applications, advances, and emerging challenges

Guangshun Sun et al. Mol Ther Oncolytics. .

Abstract

Cancer has become one of the greatest threats to human health, and new technologies are urgently needed to further clarify the mechanisms of cancer so that better detection and treatment strategies can be developed. At present, extensive genomic analysis and testing of clinical specimens shape the insights into carcinoma. Nevertheless, carcinoma of humans is a complex ecosystem of cells, including carcinoma cells and immunity-related and stroma-related subsets, with accurate characteristics obscured by extensive genome-related approaches. A growing body of research shows that sequencing of single-cell RNA (scRNA-seq) is emerging to be an effective way for dissecting human tumor tissue at single-cell resolution, presenting one prominent way for explaining carcinoma biology. This review summarizes the research progress of scRNA-seq in the field of tumors, focusing on the application of scRNA-seq in tumor circulating cells, tumor stem cells, tumor drug resistance, the tumor microenvironment, and so on, which provides a new perspective for tumor research.

Keywords: carcinoma; carcinoma stem cells; single-cell RNA sequencing; tumor microenvironment; tumor resistance.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Figure 1
Figure 1
Experiment-related workflow of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) techniques
Figure 2
Figure 2
Advances of individual-cell RNA sequencing in carcinoma
Figure 3
Figure 3
scRNA-seq and the tumor microenvironment
Figure 4
Figure 4
Use of individual-cell RNA sequencing inside different fields
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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