Nearly finished genomes produced using gel microdroplet culturing reveal substantial intraspecies genomic diversity within the human microbiome.

The majority of microbial genomic diversity remains unexplored. This is largely due to our inability to culture most microorganisms in isolation, which is a prerequisite for traditional genome sequencing. Single-cell sequencing has allowed researchers to circumvent this limitation. DNA is amplified directly from a single cell using the whole-genome amplification technique of multiple displacement amplification (MDA). However, MDA from a single chromosome copy suffers from amplification bias and a large loss of specificity from even very small amounts of DNA contamination, which makes assembling a genome difficult and completely finishing a genome impossible except in extraordinary circumstances. Gel microdrop cultivation allows culturing of a diverse microbial community and provides hundreds to thousands of genetically identical cells as input for an MDA reaction. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by comparing sequencing results of gel microdroplets and single cells following MDA. Bias is reduced in the MDA reaction and genome sequencing, and assembly is greatly improved when using gel microdroplets. We acquired multiple near-complete genomes for two bacterial species from human oral and stool microbiome samples. A significant amount of genome diversity, including single nucleotide polymorphisms and genome recombination, is discovered. Gel microdroplets offer a powerful and high-throughput technology for assembling whole genomes from complex samples and for probing the pan-genome of naturally occurring populations.

RNA-sequencing from single nuclei.

It has recently been established that synthesis of double-stranded cDNA can be done from a single cell for use in DNA sequencing. Global gene expression can be quantified from the number of reads mapping to each gene, and mutations and mRNA splicing variants determined from the sequence reads. Here we demonstrate that this method of transcriptomic analysis can be done using the extremely low levels of mRNA in a single nucleus, isolated from a mouse neural progenitor cell line and from dissected hippocampal tissue. This method is characterized by excellent coverage and technical reproducibility. On average, more than 16,000 of the 24,057 mouse protein-coding genes were detected from single nuclei, and the amount of gene-expression variation was similar when measured between single nuclei and single cells. Several major advantages of the method exist: first, nuclei, compared with whole cells, have the advantage of being easily isolated from complex tissues and organs, such as those in the CNS. Second, the method can be widely applied to eukaryotic species, including those of different kingdoms. The method also provides insight into regulatory mechanisms specific to the nucleus. Finally, the method enables dissection of regulatory events at the single-cell level; pooling of 10 nuclei or 10 cells obscures some of the variability measured in transcript levels, implying that single nuclei and cells will be extremely useful in revealing the physiological state and interconnectedness of gene regulation in a manner that avoids the masking inherent to conventional transcriptomics using bulk cells or tissues.

Efficient de novo assembly of single-cell bacterial genomes from short-read data sets.

Whole genome amplification by the multiple displacement amplification (MDA) method allows sequencing of DNA from single cells of bacteria that cannot be cultured. Assembling a genome is challenging, however, because MDA generates highly nonuniform coverage of the genome. Here we describe an algorithm tailored for short-read data from single cells that improves assembly through the use of a progressively increasing coverage cutoff. Assembly of reads from single Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus cells captures >91% of genes within contigs, approaching the 95% captured from an assembly based on many E. coli cells. We apply this method to assemble a genome from a single cell of an uncultivated SAR324 clade of Deltaproteobacteria, a cosmopolitan bacterial lineage in the global ocean. Metabolic reconstruction suggests that SAR324 is aerobic, motile and chemotaxic. Our approach enables acquisition of genome assemblies for individual uncultivated bacteria using only short reads, providing cell-specific genetic information absent from metagenomic studies.