Cancer encompasses a variety of diseases characterized by the interaction of diverse cell entities dynamically evolving in their environment, and it still represents one of the hardest challenges in the new era of precision medicine. Despite the cancer conundrum, the last decade has marked the emergence of a wide portfolio of therapeutic breakthroughs, mostly focused on educating the immune system to selectively recognize and attack the growing malignancy. Alongside, the spatial mapping of the tumor microenvironment is evolving at a frantic pace thanks to the recent implementation of single-cell technologies, unveiling unappreciated angles related but not limited to tumor heterogeneity, cell-type composition at the tumor interface, and cell state transitions. Considering the intrinsic nature of cancer evasion, high-dimensional multi-omics approaches could provide insightful readouts about the phenotypic state of tumor landscapes at subcellular resolution, which may ultimately cast light on new strategies to overcome tumor resistance and harness the immune system to fight cancer.
Defining the immune contexture of a cancer — determined by the density, composition, functional state, and organization of tumor infiltrates — can yield information relevant to the prediction of the treatment response and the patient’s prognosis. The integrative framework of different multiplexing technologies could define the spatiotemporal abundance of different molecular entities, from RNA transcripts to protein biomarkers and cellular metabolites, finally helping to resolve the complexity of cellular interactions of the tumor milieu with the tissue surroundings. Lately, the development of multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) technologies has enabled spatial phenotyping of the tumor microenvironment (TME), which aids in defining the immune contexture through a quantitative assessment of phenotypes and functional orientation of immune cells, while simultaneously providing tissue context and spatial distribution within the TME. All-round multiplex bioimaging could decipher the collaborative role of epigenetic, functional, and metabolic mechanisms, finally illuminating uncharted tumor maps.
This Research Topic aims to shed light on approaches tackling the spatial heterogeneity of tissue microenvironments from different angles, being them either at cellular, subcellular, or molecular level. The topic should include both original articles and extensive reviews highlighting influential discoveries where the spatial mapping of RNA transcripts, protein biomarkers, and cellular metabolites is empowered by single or combinatorial single-cell omics approaches. This may represent a unique opportunity to showcase the potential of multi-omics approaches in translational research while opening the discussion on the achieved milestones, the current challenges, and the upcoming strategies for facilitating their application in pre-clinical and clinical settings.
Conflict of Interest Statement: Paolo A. Ascierto and Carlo Bifulco are members of the Scientific Advisory Board of Lunaphore Technologies SA, of which Marco Cassano and Pamela Pulimeno are also currently employed. Pamela Pulimeno was previously employed by Frontiers Media.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (clinical cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
Cancer encompasses a variety of diseases characterized by the interaction of diverse cell entities dynamically evolving in their environment, and it still represents one of the hardest challenges in the new era of precision medicine. Despite the cancer conundrum, the last decade has marked the emergence of a wide portfolio of therapeutic breakthroughs, mostly focused on educating the immune system to selectively recognize and attack the growing malignancy. Alongside, the spatial mapping of the tumor microenvironment is evolving at a frantic pace thanks to the recent implementation of single-cell technologies, unveiling unappreciated angles related but not limited to tumor heterogeneity, cell-type composition at the tumor interface, and cell state transitions. Considering the intrinsic nature of cancer evasion, high-dimensional multi-omics approaches could provide insightful readouts about the phenotypic state of tumor landscapes at subcellular resolution, which may ultimately cast light on new strategies to overcome tumor resistance and harness the immune system to fight cancer.
Defining the immune contexture of a cancer — determined by the density, composition, functional state, and organization of tumor infiltrates — can yield information relevant to the prediction of the treatment response and the patient’s prognosis. The integrative framework of different multiplexing technologies could define the spatiotemporal abundance of different molecular entities, from RNA transcripts to protein biomarkers and cellular metabolites, finally helping to resolve the complexity of cellular interactions of the tumor milieu with the tissue surroundings. Lately, the development of multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) technologies has enabled spatial phenotyping of the tumor microenvironment (TME), which aids in defining the immune contexture through a quantitative assessment of phenotypes and functional orientation of immune cells, while simultaneously providing tissue context and spatial distribution within the TME. All-round multiplex bioimaging could decipher the collaborative role of epigenetic, functional, and metabolic mechanisms, finally illuminating uncharted tumor maps.
This Research Topic aims to shed light on approaches tackling the spatial heterogeneity of tissue microenvironments from different angles, being them either at cellular, subcellular, or molecular level. The topic should include both original articles and extensive reviews highlighting influential discoveries where the spatial mapping of RNA transcripts, protein biomarkers, and cellular metabolites is empowered by single or combinatorial single-cell omics approaches. This may represent a unique opportunity to showcase the potential of multi-omics approaches in translational research while opening the discussion on the achieved milestones, the current challenges, and the upcoming strategies for facilitating their application in pre-clinical and clinical settings.
Conflict of Interest Statement: Paolo A. Ascierto and Carlo Bifulco are members of the Scientific Advisory Board of Lunaphore Technologies SA, of which Marco Cassano and Pamela Pulimeno are also currently employed. Pamela Pulimeno was previously employed by Frontiers Media.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (clinical cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
