The progress and prospects of single-cell sequencing, multi-omics integration analysis, and immunotherapy targeting strategies in lung cancer research

Lung cancer is a highly prevalent and lethal malignant tumor globally, imposing a heavy burden on public health. Traditional treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy have significant limitations, failing to meet clinical needs. In recent years, single-cell sequencing, multi-omics integration analysis, and immunotherapy have emerged as pivotal technologies driving lung cancer research forward. Single-cell sequencing uncovers cellular heterogeneity, the complexity of the tumor microenvironment, and dynamic cellular alterations at single-cell resolution, providing accurate sample stratification for multi-omics studies. Multi-omics integration enables comprehensive analysis of molecular mechanisms across genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, facilitating biomarker identification, molecular subtyping, and investigation of drug resistance mechanisms. Immune-targeted therapies, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, adoptive cellular immunotherapy, and tumor vaccines, have achieved remarkable clinical efficacy by activating the body’s immune system. The three technologies exhibit strong synergy: single-cell sequencing enhances multi-omics data quality, multi-omics mining identifies new immunotherapeutic targets, and single-cell sequencing assists in immunotherapy efficacy monitoring. Despite existing challenges such as limited single-cell sequencing throughput, multi-omics data integration difficulties, and immunotherapy adverse reactions and cost issues, future advancements in technology optimization and multidisciplinary integration are expected to realize precise diagnosis and personalized treatment of lung cancer, improving patient survival rates and quality of life.