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TARGET-seq Takes Aim at Cancer Evolution through Multi-omics Single-Cell Genotyping and Transcriptomics

Ronan Chaligne1, Anna S Nam2, Dan A Landau3

  • 1Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine and Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; New York Genome Center, New York, NY, USA.

Molecular Cell
|March 23, 2019
PubMed

Insights

Researchers developed TARGET-seq, a novel single-cell method. This technique links tumor cell mutations to their transcriptional effects, advancing cancer research.

Area of Science:

  • Genomics
  • Cancer Biology
  • Molecular Biology

Background:

  • Understanding the link between somatic mutations and gene expression is crucial in cancer research.
  • Existing methods often struggle to profile both mutations and transcriptomes at the single-cell level in diverse cancer populations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To introduce and validate TARGET-seq, a new single-cell sequencing method.
  • To enable direct correlation of somatic mutations with transcriptional phenotypes within individual tumor cells.

Main Methods:

  • TARGET-seq combines single-cell genotyping of somatic mutations with whole transcriptome sequencing.
  • The method is applied to clonally diverse cancer cell populations.

Main Results:

  • TARGET-seq successfully genotypes somatic mutations and captures whole transcriptomes from the same tumor cells.
  • The study demonstrates the feasibility of linking specific mutations to cellular transcriptional states.

Conclusions:

  • TARGET-seq provides a powerful tool for dissecting the functional impact of somatic mutations in cancer.
  • This method facilitates a deeper understanding of transcriptional heterogeneity driven by mutations in cancer populations.

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