Sensitive and powerful single-cell RNA sequencing using mcSCRB-seq

Authors (SFB 1243 members): Johannes Bagnoli, Christoph Ziegenhain, Aleksandar Janjic, Lucas E. Wange, Beate Vieth, Swati Parekh, Johanna Geuder, Ines Hellmann and Wolfgang Enard

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05347-6

LMU press release

Cited from the article's introductory abstract:

"Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has emerged as a central genome-wide method to characterize cellular identities and processes. Consequently, improving its sensitivity, flexibility, and cost-efficiency can advance many research questions. Among the flexible platebased methods, single-cell RNA barcoding and sequencing (SCRB-seq) is highly sensitive and efficient. Here, we systematically evaluate experimental conditions of this protocol and find that adding polyethylene glycol considerably increases sensitivity by enhancing cDNA synthesis. Furthermore, using Terra polymerase increases efficiency due to a more even cDNA amplification that requires less sequencing of libraries. We combined these and other improvements to develop a scRNA-seq library protocol we call molecular crowding SCRB-seq (mcSCRB-seq), which we show to be one of the most sensitive, efficient, and flexible scRNAseq methods to date."