087 Tumor assembly of the spatially organized self-propagating myeloid niche

Abstract

Cancer immunotherapies have revolutionized treatment, but disappointing results in single-agent regiments reveal the need to understand the origin and assembly of the tumor immune niche to identify further targets in the highly heterogeneous tumor microenvironment. We have previously focused on tumor resistance mechanisms primarily driven by tumor epithelial heterogeneity in skin basal cell carcinoma (BCC), identifying discrete subpopulations resistant to canonical therapies. Here, we have used a combination of single-cell and imaging-based spatial analysis to define the extensive but specific and supportive microenvironmental heterogeneity surrounding the BCC tumor epithelia.