Cells are the basic unit of structure and function of organisms. During the growth and development of organisms, their transcriptome information varies due to differences in cell types, external environments, and internal regulatory factors. Cells from the same cell line or individual exhibit different genomes, transcriptomes, and epigenomes due to genomic and epigenetic reprogramming, as well as errors during cell division and differentiation. Cellular heterogeneity is a common feature of biological tissues and biological systems. Understanding cellular heterogeneity has driven the development of a powerful suite of instruments, protocols, and methods for the analysis of DNA sequence, RNA expression, and protein abundance levels in single cells.
Conventional next-generation sequencing detects the genome and transcriptome information of a cell population. The method can provide a large amount of genomic or transcriptomic data, but it cannot reveal the heterogeneity of cells. Single cell sequencing measures the genome of a single cell in a cell population. Common Single cell sequencing technologies are single cell DNA sequencing (scDNA-seq), single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), and single-cell transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (scATAC-seq). By determining the genome of single cells, scDNA-seq allows the genomic heterogeneity of a cellular population to be investigated. scRNA-seq technology has become the state-of-the-art approach for unravelling the heterogeneity and complexity of RNA transcripts within individual cells, as well as revealing the composition of different cell types and functions within highly organized tissues/organs/organisms. scATAC-seq is based on transposase-mediated insertion of sequencing primers into open chromatin regions. The assay provides profiles of open and accessible regions of chromatin that are indicative of active regulatory regions at single cell resolution.
Single cell sequencing technologies have been used to identify novel mutations in cancer cells, explore progressive epigenomic changes that occur during embryonic development, and assess how seemingly homogeneous cell populations express specific genes. Amerigo Scientific offers a wide range of single cell sequencing kits to support your research, providing efficient and high-quality solutions for single cell analysis.
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