Objective

Novel single-cell technologies allow the analysis of biological systems at multiple scales of resolution, from single cells to complete tissues and even whole organisms. In addition, these new technologies have rapidly enhanced our understanding of the distinct functional cellular activation states underlying diseases such as cancer, inflammatory and neurodegenerative illnesses by comparing healthy and diseased tissues. Improved knowledge on the precise composition of cell types present in complex tissues and understanding how these cell types interact with each other is critical to unravel underlying disease mechanisms and identify new drug targets. Detailed mechanistic insight into these fundamental biological questions can only be achieved using complementary technologies for single-cell profiling, combined with advanced bioinformatics modelling approaches. In this presentation we will discuss how single-cell proteogenomics technologies completely change the interpretation of perturbations in the gene expression profile obtained from pooled cell samples or whole tissues. This will be done using illustrations of the strength of singe cell technologies in the field of cancer and immunology.