Sequencing a genome usually requires DNA from thousands or even millions of cells, but a technique now allows more than 90% of the genome of a single cell to be sequenced. This could enable studies, for example, on how mutated cancer cells emerge or how individual neurons differ.
Sunney Xie at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues developed the method, which uses short DNA molecules called primers. These molecules are added to DNA that has been isolated from a single cell, and that stick to its strands to act as starting points for DNA replication. The primers are designed to reduce the excessive copying of some portions of the genome at the expense of others — a problem that has plagued other attempts at single-cell sequencing.
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Single-cell sequencing. Nature 493, 136 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/493136c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/493136c
