Solutions for the Interaction of Cancer Stem Cells with TMEs

Relying on the technology platform of the tumor microenvironment center, Alfa Cytology provides comprehensive solutions the study of the interactions between tumor stem cells and TME, helping researchers to successfully achieve their research goals.

Introduction

Recent literature has shown that tumor stem cells can transform into non-tumor cells and non-tumor stem cells can transform into tumor stem cells, which has led many scholars to realize that tumor stem cells are a dynamic "state" rather than a fixed one, and that the dynamic changes between tumor stem cells and non-stem cells are regulated by the tumor microenvironment.

TME refers to all components between tumor cells and adjacent normal tissues, mainly including mesenchymal stem cells, extracellular matrix, tumor-associated fibroblasts, adipocytes, endothelial cells, and immune cells. In the TME, tumor cells interact with other cells through mutual contact or secretion of cytokines, and an extremely delicate and complex dialogue occurs. And the cells in TME play an important role in maintaining the stemness of tumor stem cells, tumor growth/metastasis, and other processes. The survival of tumor stem cells requires a specific tumor microenvironment called stem cell niche. Tumor stem cells are closely related to the tumor microenvironment, and tumors can not only adapt to changes in the tumor microenvironment, but also change and influence the tumor microenvironment; while the tumor microenvironment can not only affect the self-renewal ability of tumor stem cells, but also induce the transformation of normal small cells and non-tumor stem cells to tumor stem cells.

Solutions

Tumor stem cells and non-tumor stem cells are not absolute, they are dynamically changing, and there are limitations in the treatment targeting tumor cells alone or targeting tumor stem cells alone. Only by considering the characteristics of all cell subpopulations in tumor tissues and fully understanding the interaction mechanisms of different cell subpopulations in tumors, it is possible to cure tumors radically. Therefore, the study of the interactions between tumor stem cells and tumor microenvironment is bound to become a hot topic in tumor research. Alfa Cytology has established a tumor microenvironment technology platform and developed a number of emerging technologies, hoping to overcome the above-mentioned research difficulties through this platform technology, help to study the interaction between tumor microenvironment components and tumor stem cells, reveal their mechanisms of action, and in the process, find potential targets for tumor therapy, and provide new thinking for clinical anti-tumor therapy.

Key technologies

Animal models include spontaneous tumor animal models, induced tumor animal models, transplanted tumor animal models and human tumor xenograft tumor models. The establishment of tumor animal models can study the interaction between tumor stem cells and the tumor microenvironment and its molecular mechanism of action, evaluate the efficacy of anti-tumor immunotherapy, and can be used as a model for anti-tumor drug screening.

The joint resolution of spatial multi-omics mapping by spatial multi-omics technologies enables us to reconstruct the key processes of tumorigenesis and further resolve the interactions between tumor microenvironment and tumor stem cells. Related technologies include DBiT-seq (which supports simultaneous recording of spatial barcode mRNA and proteins of interest), STvEA (which can utilize the rich multiplex immunohistochemistry data of scRNA-seq and also map CODEX imaging data to scRNA-seq).

Most image-based in situ transcriptomics techniques cannot capture the entire transcriptome profile, but can provide single-cell or even sub-cellular resolution within tissues, thus enabling the discovery of complex cellular states of cancer cells, and related technologies include smFISH, ExFISH, osmFISH, seqFISH+, MERFISH, STARmap, etc.

High-throughput technologies based on laser capture microdissection (LCM) can quantify the transcriptome at the cellular level, but these technologies cannot reach higher resolution and can only track regional location information; related technologies include LCM-seq, TSCS, GEO-seq, Tomo-seq, etc.

Alfa Cytology is committed to supporting scientists in making breakthrough scientific discoveries and developing new applications to accelerate new drug discovery and scientific diagnosis and treatment. Our high-performance scientific instruments and high-value solutions enable scientists to explore the mysteries of life at the tumor microenvironment level. Please tell us your project requirements, and we will provide you with a full service from solution to report. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

All of our services and products are intended for preclinical research use only and cannot be used to diagnose, treat or manage patients.