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Review
. 2017 Dec;6(1):10.
doi: 10.1186/s40169-017-0139-4. Epub 2017 Feb 20.

Single cell sequencing: a distinct new field

Jian Wang  1 , Yuanlin Song  2
Affiliations
Review

Single cell sequencing: a distinct new field

Jian Wang et al. Clin Transl Med. 2017 Dec.

Abstract

Single cell sequencing (SCS) has become a new approach to study biological heterogeneity. The advancement in technologies for single cell isolation, amplification of genome/transcriptome and next-generation sequencing enables SCS to reveal the inherent properties of a single cell from the large scale of the genome, transcriptome or epigenome at high resolution. Recently, SCS has been widely applied in various clinical and research fields, such as cancer biology and oncology, immunology, microbiology, neurobiology and prenatal diagnosis. In this review, we will discuss the development of SCS methods and focus on the latest clinical and research applications of SCS.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The current methods for single cell isolation. a Serial dilution. b Mechanical micromanipulation. c Laser capture microdissection (LCM). d Fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS). e Microfluidics. f The representative platform for circulating tumor cells (CTCs) isolation: CellSearch
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Schematic of the whole genome amplification methods for single cell sequencing. a Degenerate oligonucleotide-primed PCR (DOP-PCR). b Multiple displacement amplification (MDA). c Multiple annealing and looping based amplification cycles (MALBAC)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Schematic of the whole transcriptome amplification methods for single cell sequencing. a oligo dT-Anchor approach. b Template-switching approach (including SMART-seq, SMART-seq2 and STRT). c Unique molecular identifiers (UMIs)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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