Single-Cell Transcriptomics Reveals Heterogeneity and Drug Response of Human Colorectal Cancer Organoids.

Abstract

Organoids are three-dimensional cell cultures that mimic organ functions and structures. The organoid model has been developed as a versatile in vitro platform for stem cell biology and diseases modeling. Tumor organoids are shown to share ~ 90% of genetic mutations with biopsies from same patients. However, it's not clear whether tumor organoids recapitulate the cellular heterogeneity observed in patient tumors. Here, we used single-cell RNA-Seq to investigate the transcriptomics of tumor organoids derived from human colorectal tumors, and applied machine learning methods to unbiasedly cluster subtypes in tumor organoids. Computational analysis reveals cancer heterogeneity sustained in tumor organoids, and the subtypes in organoids displayed high diversity. Furthermore, we treated the tumor organoids with a first-line cancer drug, Oxaliplatin, and investigated drug response in single-cell scale. Diversity of tumor cell populations in organoids were significantly perturbed by drug treatment. Single-cell analysis detected the depletion of chemosensitive subgroups and emergence of new drug tolerant subgroups after drug treatment. Our study suggests that the organoid model is capable of recapitulating clinical heterogeneity and its evolution in response to chemotherapy.

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10.1109/embc.2018.8512784

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Chen, Kai-Yuan, Tara Srinivasan, Christopher Lin, Kuei-Ling Tung, Ziyang Gao, David S Hsu, Steven M Lipkin, Xiling Shen, et al. (2018). Single-Cell Transcriptomics Reveals Heterogeneity and Drug Response of Human Colorectal Cancer Organoids. Conference proceedings : ... Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual Conference, 2018. pp. 2378–2381. 10.1109/embc.2018.8512784 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/17792.

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Xiling Shen

Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pathology

Dr. Shen’s research interests lie at precision medicine and systems biology. His lab integrates engineering, computational and biological techniques to study cancer, stem cells, microbiota and the nervous system in the gut. This multidisciplinary work has been instrumental in initiating several translational clinical trials in precision therapy. He is the director of the Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health (DAP) and a core member of the Center for Genomics and Computational Biology (GCB).


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