Special Issue: Human Genetics Review Single-Cell Analysis in Cancer

Genetic changes and environmental differences result in cellular heterogeneity among cancer cells within the same tumor, thereby complicating treatment outcomes. Recent advances in single-cell technologies have opened new avenues to characterize the intra-tumor cellular heterogeneity, identify rare cell types, measure mutation rates, and, ultimately, guide diagnosis and treatment. In this paper we review the recent single-cell technological and computational advances at the genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic levels, and discuss their applications in cancer research. Cancer is a Disease of Multitudes Cellular heterogeneity, which results from mutation, differences in gene regulation, stochastic variation, or environmental perturbations, is reflected at the genomic, transcriptomic, and proteo-mic levels. Such heterogeneity is increasingly appreciated as a factor of cancer treatment failure and disease recurrence, because a treatment that targets one tumor cell population may not be effective against another [1]. Not only is cancer itself a complex disease made up of a collection of individually distinct pathologies, but also within each tumor there is significant heterogeneity amon