RNA-Seq Blog Transcriptome Research & Industry News
WaferGen Bio-systems, Inc. announced that single-cell analysis results generated by BGI utilizing WaferGen’s ICELL8 single-cell technology have been published in the November edition of GigaScience.
The article, entitled “Full-length single-cell RNA-seq applied to a viral human cancer: applications to HPV expression and splicing analysis in HeLa S3 cells”, demonstrates the ability to prepare full-length cDNA from more than 500 single cells per run utilizing WaferGen’s system, and reveals the heterogeneity of HPV virus-infected cervical cancer cell lines using whole transcriptome analysis. The system produced a high number of mapped reads and the number of genes detected was comparable to a microfluidic chip-based system. In addition, BGI used the platform to prepare single-cell RNA of biopsy material from a variety of samples, such as bladder cancer tissue, liver cancer tissues and B cells, with a resulting higher success rate compared with a tube-based approach.
“The 5,184 nanowell chip technology from WaferGen is ideal for high-throughput single-cell analysis. We have been able to produce high quality results, and the flexibility of the technology has allowed us to adopt the platform for our commercial research and service offerings,” said Yong Hou, Associate Director of BGI Research.
“Utilizing ICELL8 technology, BGI has introduced a number of innovative concepts by combining two critical steps in the nanowells to minimize the loss of very small amounts of DNA and using WaferGen’s SmartChip Real Time PCR cycler to select wells containing single-cells,” said Dr. Maithreyan Srinivasan, Chief Technology Officer of WaferGen Bio-systems.
WaferGen recently commercially launched the ICELL8™ System, a single-cell analysis platform that can isolate up to 1,800 single cells ranging from 5-100 µm without size pre-selection or filtering. The system is able to dispense up to 8 different cell types or 8 different experimental conditions on a single chip, thus enabling unbiased experiments and greater biological insight. The system also includes an imaging station and CellSelect™ software which automatically images each nanowell and selects viable single cells for downstream processing. The throughput and ability to choose specific cells enables a wide range of research applications, including stem cell, neuroscience, immunology, and cancer.
