Jan. 16, 2025
Newer Tech Offers Closeups of Cancer Cells
Spatial omics help scientists track bad actors in the body's fight against cancer.
TOPICS: Cancer & Immunotherapy | School of Medicine
Designs on Aging-Ready
By Strategic Communications
Gotham City is an analogy for a tumor—a dense, seedy environment rife with bad actors (cancer cells). In it, though, you can find a haven for cancer fighters, tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs). These command centers orchestrate immune cell function and are associated with better patient outcomes and responses to immune therapy.
But just as not all cities have Batman and Robin working out of the Bat Cave, not all cancers have their B cells and T cells working out of a TLS. One of the cancers where TLS formation is less common is high-grade serous ovarian cancer—about 15% of patients with this form, the deadliest, have TLSs, whereas the formation is about 40% in other solid tumors. Tullia Bruno, assistant professor of immunology, School of Medicine, and fellow University of Pittsburgh researchers wanted to learn more about why TLSs develop less frequently in these tumors. To investigate, they used emerging technology of which Batman would be jealous.
Through spatial imaging and transcriptomics, the researchers peered into the cancer tissue to visualize and analyze how the cells interact with one another, and, in doing so, came to a better understanding of how TLSs form. They also discovered that TLS formation often depends on the site of the cancer.
So location matters, and the tech enables Bruno’s team to tell where the good, bad and neutral actors are. Not only that, it allows them to monitor what they are saying to each other (cell signaling) and what they’re planning (gene expression). Even if thousands of messages are sent (genes are active), those can all be tracked.
Bruno and her colleagues aren’t the only ones at Pitt employing this emerging technology. The lab team under Satdarshan (Paul) S. Monga, Pitt School of Medicine’s SVC Professor of Pathobiology and Therapeutics, for instance, is also conducting spatial research. They’re all hoping to better identify drug targets and immune therapies.
“Spatial biology has enabled us to ask deeper questions about the relevance of an observation within the context of a preserved tissue architecture and at a scale that has never been possible before,” Monga says. “And as these technologies continue to evolve, spatial transcriptomics and associated computational tools will revolutionize precision medicine.”
Depending on the questions they’re asking, Pitt researchers use a few different spatial omics platforms—spatial omics being a broader term referring to the technologies that analyze biological molecules in their native location within a tissue. Some platforms map proteins; some track hundreds of genes; some track thousands of genes; and some track other molecular and cellular interactions. Bruno notes that Pitt is already strong in the use of spatial transcriptomics and now is ramping up its game considerably. Devin Dressman, assistant professor of pathology, School of Medicine, and associate director for research operations and strategy at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, leads a project that is creating an atlas of cancer cells applying various spatial omics to about 4,000 patient tumor samples. Owkin, a biotech company, has invested $50 million in the effort, which also involves several European research centers.
Although spatial omics technologies are nascent in many respects, as they apply these tools, scientists are already gaining fresh insights on how cancer arises and how it can be treated. And in other contexts, scientists are using the tech to understand liver disease, brain function and embryo development.