Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jan;55(1):e13161.
doi: 10.1111/cpr.13161. Epub 2021 Dec 9.

Advances in single-cell sequencing and its application to musculoskeletal system research

Yongxiang Zhang  1   2 , Jingkai Wang  1   2 , Chao Yu  1   2 , Kaishun Xia  1   2 , Biao Yang  1   2 , Yuang Zhang  1   2 , Liwei Ying  1   2 , Chenggui Wang  1   2 , Xianpeng Huang  1   2 , Qixin Chen  1   2 , Li Shen  1   3   4 , Fangcai Li  1   2 , Chengzhen Liang  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Advances in single-cell sequencing and its application to musculoskeletal system research

Yongxiang Zhang et al. Cell Prolif. 2022 Jan.

Abstract

In recent years, single-cell sequencing (SCS) technologies have continued to advance with improved operating procedures and reduced cost, leading to increasing practical adoption among researchers. These emerging technologies have superior abilities to analyse cell heterogeneity at a single-cell level, which have elevated multi-omics research to a higher level. In some fields of research, application of SCS has enabled many valuable discoveries, and musculoskeletal system offers typical examples. This article reviews some major scientific issues and recent advances in musculoskeletal system. In addition, combined with SCS technologies, the research of cell or tissue heterogeneity in limb development and various musculoskeletal system clinical diseases also provides new possibilities for treatment strategies. Finally, this article discusses the challenges and future development potential of SCS and recommends the direction of future applications of SCS to musculoskeletal medicine.

Keywords: cell heterogeneity; musculoskeletal system; single-cell multi-omics; single-cell sequencing.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
An overview of the research issues of the musculoskeletal system
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Basic procedures of single‐cell transcriptome sequencing (scRNA‐seq) and three common single‐cell sorting platform. ScRNA‐seq generally involves five basic procedures: single‐cell isolation, reverse transcription, cDNA amplification, library preparation and high‐throughput sequencing. Drop‐seq, 10X Genomics and BD Rhapsody are the most widely used single‐cell sorting platforms. They use microparticle beads with sequences linked by different cell barcodes, UMI and Oligo dT. These beads can capture mRNAs with poly A tails for reverse transcription and cDNA library preparation. Finally, all transcriptome information of a single cell is obtained by high‐throughput sequencing
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bianconi E, Piovesan A, Facchin F, et al. An estimation of the number of cells in the human body. Ann Hum Biol. 2013;40(6):463‐471. - PubMed
    1. Engel LW. The human genome project ‐ history, goals, and progress to date. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 1993;117(5):459‐465. - PubMed
    1. Dobson R. Working draft of the human genome completed. Bull World Health Organ. 2000;78(9):1168‐1169. - PubMed
    1. Regev A, Teichmann SA, Lander ES, et al. The human cell atlas. eLife. 2017;6:30. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wu X, Yang B, Udo‐Inyang I, et al. Research techniques made simple: single‐cell RNA sequencing and its applications in dermatology. J Invest Dermatol. 2018;138(5):1004‐1009. - PMC - PubMed