title: Single-cell profiling approaches to probing tumor heterogeneity.
abstract: Tumor heterogeneity is a major hindrance in cancer classification, diagnosis and treatment. Recent technological advances have begun to reveal the true extent of its heterogeneity. Single-cell analysis (SCA) is emerging as an important approach to detect variations in morphology, genetic or proteomic expression. In this review, we revisit the issue of inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity, and list various modes of SCA techniques (cell-based, nucleic acid-based, protein-based, metabolite-based and lipid-based) presently used for cancer characterization. We further discuss the advantages of SCA over pooled cell analysis, as well as the limitations of conventional techniques. Emerging trends, such as high-throughput sequencing, are also mentioned as improved means for cancer profiling. Collectively, these applications have the potential for breakthroughs in cancer treatment.
authors.affiliation: Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore.|BioSystems and Micromechanics (BioSyM) IRG, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, Singapore.
authors.forename: Bee Luan
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Khoo
authors.affiliation: Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore.
authors.forename: Parthiv Kant
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Chaudhuri
authors.affiliation: Fluidigm Corporation, South San Francisco, CA.
authors.forename: Naveen
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ramalingam
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Centre Singapore.|Cancer Stem Cell Biology, Genome Institute of Singapore.
authors.forename: Daniel Shao Weng
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore.|BioSystems and Micromechanics (BioSyM) IRG, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, Singapore.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore.
authors.forename: Chwee Teck
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: BioSystems and Micromechanics (BioSyM) IRG, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, Singapore.|School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Majid Ebrahimi
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Warkiani
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D040901:Proteomics / Q000379:methods; D015398:Signal Transduction; D059010:Single-Cell Analysis / Q000379:methods
keywords: cancer; heterogeneity; microfluidics; molecular analysis; single-cell analysis; tumors