ICELL8™ System Obtains High-Throughput Single-Cell T-Cell Receptor Sequencing Results

WaferGen Bio-systems Inc. has presented T-cell receptor (TCR) sequencing results from its ICELL8™ Single-Cell System at the 2016 Single Cell Genomics Conference in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

The poster presentation, titled "A SMARTer^®Approach to Profiling the Human T-cell Receptor Repertoire Using the ICELL8 Single Cell System", demonstrates the ability to perform TCR sequencing from thousands of single cells and is a joint poster with Takara Bio USA, Inc. (formerly known as Clontech Laboratories, Inc.).

Results presented using the ICELL8 Single-Cell system display the power of high throughput single-cell TCR sequencing analysis. Analysis was performed using more than 1,000 single Jurkat cells which were isolated, automatically identified and selected using proprietary CellSelect™ software and prepared for next generation sequencing analysis. Individual TCR sequences from each cell (clonotypes) were selectively amplified and sequenced in a MiSeq using 2 x 300 base pair sequencing. Single-cell TCR sequencing analysis revealed the expected clonotypes and the total number of clonotypes identified correlated with equivalent bulk samples. Single-cell analysis was also able to provide greater insights by identifying paired alpha and beta subunit information, which is not possible using bulk samples.

"The ICELL8 Single-Cell system is a powerful and flexible technology platform which can enable a number of new, high throughput single-cell applications. TCR sequencing at the single cell level will provide greater insights for researchers in the biotech and pharma community working on solutions for immuno-oncology, immune deficiency, autoimmunity, and vaccine response," said Rollie Carlson, President and CEO of WaferGen. "The TCR sequencing application is also the first demonstration of the synergies that we expect from the partnership between WaferGen Bio-systems and Takara Bio USA."

The ICELL8 Single-Cell System can be used to isolate thousands of single cells and prepare them for next generation sequencing analysis. The system has been used to successfully process a wide range of cell types, including live single neurons, human tumor cells, mouse tumor cells, T-cells and nuclei, demonstrating effective and unbiased cell isolation. The system also runs up to eight samples of various cell types and sizes on a single chip. The system was initially developed for 3' RNA sequencing applications but additional applications, such as TCR sequencing, can be easily deployed.