Research
The human body contains around 40 trillion cells made up from over 200 different cell types. This combination of different cells enables metazoan tissues to achieve complex phenotypes that no one cell type can achieve alone. For example, in the intestine, epithelial cells control nutrient uptake, whereas stromal fibroblasts support epithelial renewal, and tissue-resident leukocytes patrol against infection. No one cell type can perform all these jobs, but together they can collaborate to form a complex tissue epithelium with adaptive immunosurveillance. Such multicellular collaboration requires different cell types to communicate with one another.

Just like healthy intestinal tissue, colorectal cancer (CRC) tumours also contain epithelial, stromal, lymphoid, and myeloid cells. And like healthy tissues, CRC tumours use these different cells to achieve complex phenotypes. The difference with cancer is that these phenotypes (such as immune evasion and metastasis) can kill, rather than aid, the host organism. Unfortunately, we know very little about how the different cell types in cancer communicate with one another to drive tumours.