Single-Cell Sequencing: Biological Insight and Potential Clinical Implications in Pediatric Leukemia

Abstract

Single-cell sequencing (SCS) provides high-resolution insight into the genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic landscape of oncohematological malignancies including pediatric leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer. Besides broadening our biological understanding of cellular heterogeneity, sub-clonal architecture, and regulatory network of tumor cell populations, SCS can offer clinically relevant, detailed characterization of distinct compartments affected by leukemia and identify therapeutically exploitable vulnerabilities. In this review, we provide an overview of SCS studies focused on the high-resolution genomic and transcriptomic scrutiny of pediatric leukemia. Our aim is to investigate and summarize how different layers of single-cell omics approaches can expectedly support clinical decision making in the future. Although the clinical management of pediatric leukemia underwent a spectacular improvement during the past decades, resistant disease is a major cause of therapy failure. Currently, only a small proportion of childhood leukemia patients benefit from genomics-driven therapy, as 15–20% of them meet the indication criteria of on-label targeted agents, and their overall response rate falls in a relatively wide range (40–85%). The in-depth scrutiny of various cell populations influencing the development, progression, and treatment resistance of different disease subtypes can potentially uncover a wider range of driver mechanisms for innovative therapeutic interventions.