Researchers go deeper than ever into a tumor by combining two high-quality techniques | LUMC

In the study, published in the scientific journal Nature’s Waysthe researchers describe a combination of two approaches that together provide a better idea of ​​the so-called tumor environment: the set of cells, tissues and molecules that surround a tumor and interact work with the tumor cells. Understanding this environment is critical to developing more effective cancer treatments. But also to find out how dangerous a tumor is for a patient.

The whole picture

Before that, researchers took material from cell by cell. “The disadvantage was that you no longer knew where these cells came from. It was as if you had taken apart a Lego structure and thrown it block by block back into the box,” says Marieke IJsselsteijn, one of the researchers.

In the new study, LUMC researchers used LUMC’s in-house high-tech equipment. They then combined imaging mass spectrometry (MS) and imaging mass cytometry (IMC) techniques. To do this, they worked intensively with the departments of pathology, human genetics, parasitology and the Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics of the LUMC.

IJsselsteijn “With MS we look at the metabolism of the tumor tissue; how sugars are converted into energy, for example. With IMC we can see how tumor cells, but also immune cells, behave in the tumor tissue. By combining these two methods we can see each cell how their metabolism is active in the tissue and therefore we can make a better map of what is going on in the tumor.”

Place of metabolism

In cancer research, the metabolism of cancer cells plays an important role, because it is different from the metabolism of healthy cells. Metabolism is essential to the body, as it contains all the chemical processes that convert food into energy and building materials. Metabolism helps with growth, energy production, recovery and breakdown of waste products in our body.

IJsselsteijn: “We know that in colon cancer there are almost no immune cells in some of the tumors. It doesn’t seem like much is going on. But based on research we know that there is activity. By ‘ combining the two methods, we will hope, for example, to see if there are specific functions in the tumor cells that prevent immune cells from reaching them.

The researchers also hope to learn more by comparing tumors. “You can have two tumors that look the same, while one tumor is much more aggressive than the other. We don’t know why that happens; we’re missing something. Maybe because it’s not all our information,” she says.

‘Not the attention it deserved’

“Over the years, metabolism has not received the attention it deserves,” said Noel de Miranda, one of the researchers. “Firstly, because it is very complex. And secondly, because we did not yet have the technology to deal with it, especially in tissues. The development of this new technology which “allowing us to understand the complexity of metabolism at this level gives us important information that we could not get before,” he said.

1 and 1 is 3

To gain insight into the metabolic system in tissue with MS, fresh or frozen tumor tissue is used. The quality of such tissue deteriorates rapidly, making it previously difficult to combine MS and IMC techniques. This is now fixed by fixing the material after the confirmation through MS, that is to say: a thin layer of coating is added, which keeps the material good for a long time.

The most important result of this is that scientists can now research the same piece of tissue twice in a row, without the quality of the material decreasing or the material being damaged. “That gives us the opportunity to overlap the two images that the two methods provide, so that we can see not only which cells are in a tissue, but also what they are doing. We get the whole picture. picture In this case, 1 and 1 really equals 3,” concluded IJsselsteijn.