Fig. 3

Potential applications of single-cell sequencing technologies in cancer research. a Spatial single-cell sequencing. Integration of single-cell sequencing technologies with spatial information of cells to analyze the spatial architecture of tumors. This technique is not yet widely used but is important for cancer biology and treatment. b Single-cell multi-omics. Interrogation of the cellular interaction network within tumors by single-cell sequencing. The very recent development of ProximID, which maps physical cellular interaction networks via single-cell RNA-seq without prior knowledge of component cell types, has proved the principles of single-cell multi-omics [194] and provides great promise for cancer research. c Cellular interaction mapping. Application of single-cell multi-omics techniques to resolve both the somatic mutations and gene expression, which will allow the investigation of immunogenicity of single cancer cells. d Single-cell epigenetics. Techniques to resolve the heterogeneity of cancer cells and tumor-infiltrating immune cells, which may provide new insights into the regulatory mechanisms within tumors and new drug targets to modulate tumor progression