Bowel cancer cells can rapidly switch between fast-growing and slow-growing states to evade chemotherapy, and this project will map the signals that control that shape-shifting ability. This matters because existing chemotherapies only kill fast-growing cancer cells, leaving slow-growing survivors to seed new tumours. More than 900,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with bowel cancer each year, and most deaths come from metastases—often in the liver—that resist treatment. Researchers have identified cellular plasticity as a fundamental feature of the disease, but no current therapy targets it. The team will grow miniature tumours (organoids) from 20 primary and 20 metastatic bowel cancer patients, then use two novel single-cell technologies—TOBis MC and SIGNAL-seq—to track how external cues and internal signalling molecules drive plasticity. Advanced computational methods will link each patient’s plasticity profile to their drug response. If successful, this research could reveal patient-specific targets for overcoming chemoresistance, leading to new therapeutic options for advanced colorectal cancer. The work is primarily mechanistic, but understanding how plasticity is controlled is a prerequisite for designing drugs that block it.
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Bowel cancer afflicts >900,000 people worldwide and is a major source of cancer-related mortality. While surgical resection of primary bowel tumours is occasionally curative, metastases in other organs such as the liver are responsible for residual disease and ultimately patient death. Existing bowel cancer chemotherapies target fast-growing cancer cells while sparing slow-growing cells. Unfortunately, new research has revealed that bowel cancer cells can rapidly change from fast-growing into slow-growing cells to escape chemotherapy. Such cellular 'plasticity' is now considered to be a fundamental feature of bowel cancer. Unfortunately we currently have no way to target plasticity to treat either primary or metastatic bowel cancer. This MRC Research Grant will explore the inter- and intra-cellular signalling mechanisms controlling cellular plasticity in both primary and metastatic bowel cancer. Using a combination of patient-derived mini-tumour models (known as organoids) from primary and metastatic bowel cancer, novel high-throughput single-cell analysis technologies, and advanced computational methods, we will chart the cell-extrinsic and cell-intrinsic processes that regulate bowel cancer plasticity. Specifically, we will address the following research questions: Question 1: What are the cell-extrinsic cues that regulate cellular plasticity and drug responses in primary and metastatic CRC and how do these vary across patients? Question 2: How do cell-extrinsic cues signal via post-translational modifications (PTMs) to regulate gene expression programmes required for plasticity? Question 3: How can we control patient-specific stem cell plasticity to improve therapeutic responses? We will investigate these questions by integrating three novel technology platforms: 1) A cohort of x20 primary and x20 metastatic CRC patient-derived organoids (PDOs) from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre (MSKCC) (Moorman et al., Nature, in press) and University College London Hospital (UCLH). 2) Thiol-organoid barcoding in situ mass cytometry (TOBis MC) (from Qin et al Nature Methods, 2020 and Sufi et al Nature Protocols, 2021). 3) Split-pool Indexing siGNalling AnaLysis by sequencing (SIGNAL-seq) (from Opzoomer et al, bioRxiv, 2024). By combining a unique cohort of primary and metastatic CRC patient organoids with novel single-cell analysis technologies we will chart cell-extrinsic and cell-intrinsic regulation of cancer cell states. We will measure how plasticity responses vary between primary and metastatic cancer cells and map how patient-specific plasticity relates to therapy response. These mechanistic insights will be used to rationally overcome plasticity-induced chemoresistance to provide novel therapeutic options for advanced CRC.
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