Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Zurich (ETH) and Lausanne (EPFL) are enhancing the emerging field of single-cell analysis with a pioneering technique called Live-seq. This new RNA single-cell sequencing method does not require the cells to be isolated and lysed, i.e., destroyed.
Julia Vorholt, Professor of Microbiology at ETH, commented in a press release from ETH: “Our strength is that we can continue to observe the sampled cells under the microscope to see how they develop and behave.” This means that the activity of thousands of genes can now be measured in a single cell. Moreover, the micro-environment and cell-cell interactions remain intact. Vorholt explained: “Single-cell analysis is transforming from a single endpoint into a temporal and spatial analytical method.”
The team led by Vorholt and EPFL Professor Bart Deplancke is building on an ETH-developed microinjection system using the smallest injection needle in the world. This can be used to prick and extract the contents of single living cells. Vorholt and Deplancke demonstrated that the RNA from this miniscule amount of cell fluid can be read out.
According to Vorholt, there are biomedically significant questions that can now be investigated: “For example, why certain cells differentiate and their sister cells don't, or why certain cells are resistant to a cancer medication and their sister cells aren’t”. The article was published in the journal Nature on August 17.
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