Beyond snapshots: tracking the cellular journey of cancer
Live-seq unveils the dynamic nature of tumor heterogeneity
Cancer cell heterogeneity demands innovative solutions
Heterogeneous cancer cell populations consist of subpopulations exhibiting distinct genetic and epigenetic profiles resulting in transcriptomes that drive variable responses to experimentation.
Existing single-cell technologies have been instrumental in deciphering this heterogeneity using computationally inferred trajectories but are limited by their inability to track trajectories of individual cells over time directly. To infer directionality or complex topologies of trajectories, assumptions are required that have limited validity for extended for extended timeframes or heterogenous samples such as cancer cell populations
Live-seq: time-resolved transcriptomes of living cells can add directionality to scRNA datasets
Traditional scRNA-seq provides snapshots of heterogeneous populations. Using bioinformatic models, cell trajectories can be inferred using pseudotime or RNA velocity to predict the evolution of heterogeneity, however the true directionality of the inferred cell path is missing. Live-seq with FluidFM® uses biopsies collected from individual cells without impairing their viability and characteristics. Temporally spaced collections of biopsies from the same cell provides transcriptome recording over time, creating real time points across cell states to complement scRNA datasets.
Live-seq
Measure single-cell trajectories instead of inferring them
Live-seq data points can bring new insights into the dynamics of cellular heterogeneity and will help to identify individual cancer cells within a heterogenous population that respond differently to a drug or contribute to cancer progression.
How does it work?
Cytoplasmic Biopsy Extraction
Gently extract material from living cells using a Nanosyringe operated using the FluidFM OMNIUM biopsy workflow
Maintain the phenotypical context
Correlate gene expression changes with cell morphology and behavior
Obtain high-resolution, temporal transcriptomic data
The transcriptome collected in a biopsy is representative of the whole cell's transcriptome.