"Our approach provides a molecular window into 150 years of diagnostic pathology—and reveals that many of the elements and structures traditionally thought to be isolated are actually interconnected in unexpected ways," said co-senior author Peter Sorger, the Otto Krayer Professor of Systems Pharmacology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.
However, traditional histology has its limits—namely, it doesn't capture a cancer's molecular makeup or physical structure, which makes it difficult to fully take advantage of the information cancer researchers have gained over the past 50 years. "Our maps include information on almost 100 million cells from large pieces of tumors, and provide a rather unprecedented look at colorectal cancer," Santagata said. They allow researchers to start asking key questions about differences between normal and tumor tissues and variation within a tumor, he added, and reveal"exciting architectural features that had never been observed before, as well as molecular changes associated with these features.
A multiplexed image of the colon showing normal cells transitioning into cancer cells . The different colors indicate molecular features such as DNA, tumor cells, and immune cells. The researchers hope to study such transitions to learn more about how colorectal cancer forms and progresses. Credit: Jia-Ren Lin, Sorger lab, Harvard Medical School
"This is allowing us to extract a whole additional layer of molecular and structural features that we think will provide diagnostic and prognostic information and improve our ability to target these cancers," Santagata added.