SCITO-seq: single-cell combinatorial indexed cytometry sequencing

B Hwang, DS Lee, W Tamaki, Y Sun, A Ogorodnikov… - Nature …, 2021 - nature.com
B Hwang, DS Lee, W Tamaki, Y Sun, A Ogorodnikov, GC Hartoularos, A Winters, BZ Yeung
Nature methods, 2021nature.com
The development of DNA-barcoded antibodies to tag cell surface molecules has enabled
the use of droplet-based single-cell sequencing (dsc-seq) to profile protein abundances
from thousands of cells simultaneously. As compared to flow and mass cytometry, the high
per cell cost of current dsc-seq-based workflows precludes their use in clinical applications
and large-scale pooled screens. Here, we introduce SCITO-seq, a workflow that uses splint
oligonucleotides (oligos) to enable combinatorially indexed dsc-seq of DNA-barcoded …
Abstract
The development of DNA-barcoded antibodies to tag cell surface molecules has enabled the use of droplet-based single-cell sequencing (dsc-seq) to profile protein abundances from thousands of cells simultaneously. As compared to flow and mass cytometry, the high per cell cost of current dsc-seq-based workflows precludes their use in clinical applications and large-scale pooled screens. Here, we introduce SCITO-seq, a workflow that uses splint oligonucleotides (oligos) to enable combinatorially indexed dsc-seq of DNA-barcoded antibodies from over 105 cells per reaction using commercial microfluidics. By encoding sample barcodes into splint oligos, we demonstrate that multiplexed SCITO-seq produces reproducible estimates of cellular composition and surface protein expression comparable to those from mass cytometry. We further demonstrate two modified splint oligo designs that extend SCITO-seq to achieve compatibility with commercial DNA-barcoded antibodies and simultaneous expression profiling of the transcriptome and surface proteins from the same cell. These results demonstrate SCITO-seq as a flexible and ultra-high-throughput platform for sequencing-based single-cell protein and multimodal profiling.
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