Release date: 2016-02-26
In the first two months of 2016, one technology received extraordinary attention. A number of biotech companies have reached out to this technology field, including sequencing giant Illumina, CAR-T treatment giant Juno, sequencing black horse 10X Genomics, and the business of the big Huada gene.
The technology they are focusing on is called single cell sequencing. Single cell sequencing is simply a matter of sequencing individual cells in the human body.
As early as 160 years ago, the famous German medical scientist and scientist Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow believed that the disease is not caused by the disease of an organ as a whole, and a single cell is the basic unit of disease. However, until now, various disease detection and diagnosis were based on a piece of tissue or a tube of blood, and did not take into account the differences between various cells.
The current genetic sequencing is even more of a drawback. Take a piece of tissue to extract total DNA, and then sequence analysis. In fact, this sequencing process is an average result, and does not reflect the actual situation of the body, and those with less content are basically "average lost."
What single cell sequencing can do is to measure all the cells in the diseased tissue, so that you can fully grasp the disease information and even predict the development of the disease. This is the use value of single cell sequencing.
After an overview of single-cell sequencing, let's take a look at what these biotech giants are going to do with this technology.
Illumina and Bio-Rad enter single cell sequencing
January 11th, 2016 is the “Little Singles Day†of the Western calendar. On this day, Illumina and Bio-Rad announced a joint development of a single cell sequencing process.
The two sides complement each other in this collaboration, using Bio-Rad's state-of-the-art microdroplet dispensing technology and Illumina's leading NGS (next-generation sequencing) technology to develop a new technology that can analyze the genetic information of a single cell.
At present, the partners have not announced the specific details of the cooperation, and the specific solutions will be announced at the end of 2016 or early 2017.
In fact, the cooperation between Illumina and Bio-Rad is more to hope that the difficult and time-consuming single cell sequencing technology will be upgraded to a new level, enabling researchers to make new breakthroughs in understanding human development and disease.
Juno acquires AbVitro for master single-cell sequencing
Still on the "Little Bachelor's Day" in the Western calendar, Juno, who was "unwilling to be lonely," announced the acquisition of AbVitro on the grounds that Juno took a fancy to AbVitro's world-leading single-cell sequencing platform.
We all know that Juno is now a brother in the field of CAR-T immunotherapy. Why does it want to master single-cell sequencing technology? Juno believes that after equipped with AbVitro's world-leading single-cell sequencing, its CAR-T immunotherapy can dominate the world.
Traditional cellular immunotherapy will also ignore those low-level targets when searching for targets. However, in the end, these targets may be “averaged†and “coveredâ€, which is the key to cancer recurrence and metastasis. The so-called "this is the difference."
Juno intends to use AbVitro's single-cell sequencing technology to analyze as many of the targets on cancer cells as possible. In theory, if all the targets of cancer cells can be found, immunotherapy can kill all cancer cells, which can effectively prevent the recurrence and metastasis of cancer. This is Juno's ambition.
10X Genomics launches new single cell sequencing product
On February 11th, the dark horse 10X Genomics in the field of gene sequencing announced the launch of its new flagship sequencing Chromium. The most dazzling feature of Chromium is the ability to perform single-cell sequencing. Chromium is a sequencing device for 10X Genomics for large professional laboratories. It is priced at $125,000 and is currently accepting reservations. It is expected to ship at the end of July.
In fact, as early as February 9, 10x Genomics reached a cooperation intention with Qiagen and Illumina. The Chromium platform is the result of a combination of 10x Genomics and Qiagen's advanced technology.
Huada Gene acquires a US patent for single-cell genomic analysis
On January 19th, the US Patent Office published a patent for single-cell genomic analysis technology applied by Huada Gene, patent number 9238840.
As early as 2012, Huada Gene made a breakthrough in single-sequence sequencing. In March of that year, Huada published two single-cell sequencing research results in the first issue of Cell. The research team at Huada has developed a new method for analyzing single-cell genomes and applying this method to the heterogeneity of cancer research. In order to study the mechanism of cancer occurrence, development, diagnosis and treatment from the level of single nucleotide, it provides new research ideas and opens up new research directions.
From the above-mentioned attitude toward single-cell sequencing, we can see that single-cell sequencing will promote our understanding of human development and disease development. This will undoubtedly further improve the accuracy of future disease treatment.
Single cell sequencing - admission to precision medicine
Since the invention of the microscope by the Dutch scientist Antony van Leeuwenhoek in 1660, humans have gained an understanding of the microcosm. It was not until 1850 that the German doctor Rudolf Virchow linked single-cell abnormalities to disease (1). However, due to various technical means, this connection has not been effectively utilized for the following 160 years.
Until 2005, the emergence of NGS technology, single-cell sequencing technology came into being. In 2009, Tang Fuyue, a researcher at Peking University, completed the world's first single-cell RNA sequencing. Two years later, Navin of Cold Spring Harbor completed the world's first single-cell DNA sequencing. The research of Tang and Navin directly contributed to the birth of single-cell sequencing technology. In 2013, single-cell sequencing technology broke out and was selected by Science magazine as one of the six most promising scientific projects in 2013; 2014 At the beginning of the year, it was named "2013 Technology of the Year" by the "Natural Method" (2).
Xie Xiaoliang, a lifelong professor at Harvard University and director of the Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC) at Peking University, believes that from a biological and medical perspective, there are four problems that require single-cell sequencing (3): 1) Some are very There are very few precious research materials, such as egg cells and circulating tumor cells (CTC); 2) some cell genomes are very different, such as sperm; 3) over time, some cells will mutate during division, so the composition is the same There are also differences in the cellular genes of an organ; 4) the heterogeneity of cells in the same diseased tissue, such as the heterogeneity of cancerous tissues is the main cause of cancer recurrence and metastasis.
As people become aware of the importance of single-cell research for understanding humans and diseases, the birth of single-cell sequencing technology is at the right time. Single cell sequencing has been widely used in microbiology, neurology, human development, immunity, cancer, assisted reproduction and other fields. Among them, cancer and assisted reproductive research have been used in clinical practice.
In the clinical application of cancer diagnosis and treatment, the use of single-cell sequencing to analyze the changes of cancer tissue genetic material can more accurately diagnose the cause of cancer, and provide more accurate target information for treatment. At the same time, the use of single-cell sequencing technology to analyze changes in the genetic information of rare CTCs in the blood can effectively monitor tumor changes.
In the clinical application of assisted reproduction, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) combined with preimplantation genomic screening (PGS) combined with single cell sequencing technology can effectively avoid IVF Birth defects. Our country has already taken the lead in the world in this field.
The most advanced single-cell sequencing technology currently recognized is the MALB (multiple annealing and looping-based amplification cycles) technology developed by Harvard University's Xie Xiaoliang team. MALBAC technology was introduced to China by Yikang Gene Technology Co., Ltd. On September 19, 2014, the world's first test-tube baby with single-gene genetic disease and chromosomal abnormality screening by MALBAC single-cell sequencing technology was born in Peking University Third Hospital. Several families have benefited from this technology so far.
According to Peking University, Cao Xuetao, president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, believes that Xie Xiaoliang's MALBAC technology can change the entire biomedical science, and its contribution to the development and application of precision medicine in the future is limitless.
In fact, single-cell sequencing is a depth of precision medicine. This is also the main reason why biotech companies have recently been intensive in this area.
references:
1. Wang Y, Navin Nicholas E. 2015. Advances and Applications of Single-Cell Sequencing Technologies. Molecular Cell 58: 598-609
2.Chi KR. 2014. Singled out for sequencing. Nat Meth 11:13-7
3.Huang L, Ma F, Chapman A, Lu S, Xie XS. 2015. Single-Cell Whole-Genome Amplification and Sequencing: Methodology and Applications. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 16:79-102
Source: Singularity Network
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