Integration of spatial and single-cell transcriptomics for clarifying colorectal cancer intratumor heterogeneity

In various publications, single cell RNA sequencing has been used to analyze intercellular communication between colon cancer cells and stromal cells in colorectal cancer patients with adenocarcinoma sequence background. However, these analyses lacked a spatial perspective. In this study, we combined public single cell and spatial-transcriptome analyses to elucidate cell-to-cell communication in the advanced invasive zone of colorectal cancer cells. This analysis was aimed at identifying the mechanism by which colon cancer cells evade immunity, and thereby searching for new therapeutic target molecules.