Defining the immunosuppressive milieu of prostate cancer with single cell omics technologies
The immune contexture of prostate cancer is poorly studied, despite among researchers there is a strong interest in developing immunotherapy approaches to cure the disease. It is known that the immune system can have a dual role in the tumor progression, in other words, it can either promote or suppress tumor growth and invasion. However, the immunomodulation of prostate cancer and the immunosuppressive mechanisms involved are still not entirely known. In this proposal, I suggest using and integrating Omics data from various sources to give a holistic and comprehensive overview of the immune milieu of prostate cancer at a single cell level. Human prostate cancer samples will be used to generate transcriptomics with scRNA-Seq, epigenomics with scATAC-Seq and multiplexed images with the Hyperion system. Transcriptomics and epigenomics data at the single cell level will allow the classification of the cell types at the molecular level, the delineation of related biomarkers and biological mechanisms as well as the establishment of a prostate cancer specific deconvolution approach. Spatial information will be obtained for candidate biomarkers found through scRNA-Seq and scATA-Seq, and all data will be then integrated in order to create a link between transcriptional regulation, signaling pathways and cell-cell interaction. High throughput data integration in prostate cancer will allow elucidation of the biological mechanisms involved in an unprecedented level. This study will be a powerful resource for future basic studies on prostate cancer, but also for guiding the development of novel immunotherapy approaches.