Single-cell nanobiopsy enables multigenerational longitudinal transcriptomics of cancer cells

Fabio Marcuccio, Chalmers C. Chau, Georgette Tanner, Marilena Elpidorou, Martina A. Finetti, Shoaib Ajaib, Morag Taylor, Carolina Lascelles, Ian Carr, Iain Macaulay, Lucy F. Stead, Paolo Actis

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Abstract

Single-cell RNA sequencing has revolutionized our understanding of cellular heterogeneity, but routine methods require cell lysis and fail to probe the dynamic trajectories responsible for cellular state transitions, which can only be inferred. Here, we present a nanobiopsy platform that enables the injection of exogenous molecules and multigenerational longitudinal cytoplasmic sampling from a single cell and its progeny. The technique is based on scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) and, as a proof of concept, was applied to longitudinally profile the transcriptome of single glioblastoma (GBM) brain tumor cells in vitro over 72 hours. The GBM cells were biopsied before and after exposure to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and our results suggest that treatment either induces or selects for more transcriptionally stable cells. We envision the nanobiopsy will contribute to transforming standard single-cell transcriptomics from a static analysis into a dynamic assay.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbereadl0515
JournalScience Advances
Volume10
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Mar 2024

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