Abstract
The fundamental operative unit of a cancer is the genetically and epigenetically innovative single cell. Whether proliferating or quiescent, in the primary tumour mass or disseminated elsewhere, single cells govern the parameters that dictate all facets of the biology of cancer. Thus, single-cell analyses provide the ultimate level of resolution in our quest for a fundamental understanding of this disease. Historically, this quest has been hampered by technological shortcomings. In this Opinion article, we argue that the rapidly evolving field of single-cell sequencing has unshackled the cancer research community of these shortcomings. From furthering an elemental understanding of intra-tumoural genetic heterogeneity and cancer genome evolution to illuminating the governing principles of disease relapse and metastasis, we posit that single-cell sequencing promises to unravel the biology of all facets of this disease.
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Acknowledgements
The authors apologize to those whose valuable works were not cited due to space limitations. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and Jorge Nieva and Elham Azizi for insightful discussions. The authors would also like to thank Bartek Jacewicz, Allison Levy, Joseph Montecalvo, Natasha Rekhtman, Jinru Shia, Linas Mazutis, Jude Kendall and Peter Sims for providing images for the figures. T.B. is supported by the William C. and Joyce C. O'Neil Charitable Trust, Memorial Sloan Kettering Single Cell Sequencing Initiative. J.H. is supported by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) and the Susan G. Komen Foundation (IIR13265578).
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T.B. and J.H. contributed equally in conceptualizing the ideas put forth in the manuscript and contributed equally in writing the body of the work.
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Baslan, T., Hicks, J. Unravelling biology and shifting paradigms in cancer with single-cell sequencing. Nat Rev Cancer 17, 557–569 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc.2017.58
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc.2017.58
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