News Releases & Research Results World's best performance in RNA analysis with single cells - Achievement in an international performance comparison study -

The results of research led by Senior Researcher Yohei Sasawa, Technical Staff Kaori Tanaka, Technician Tetsutaro Hayashi, and Team Leader Itoshi Nikaido of the Laboratory for Bioinformatics Research, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research.

• In the international performance comparison of "high-throughput single-cell RNA sequencing," by which ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules contained in single cells were sequenced with a DNA sequencer and their amounts and types comprehensively and quantitatively determined, "Quartz-Seq2" method*achieved the world's best overall performance score.
  * Measuring method for revealing cellular functions and characteristics by sequencing RNA molecules derived from thousands to tens of thousands of single cells.
• The "Quartz-Seq2" method, achieved through this research, should contribute to advances in various research fields, including basic research on cell differentiation and organ development, regenerative medicine, and drug discovery.

This project was conducted with the support of the Research Center Network for Realization of Regenerative Medicine by AMED.

The results were published online in Nature Biotechnology on April 7.

Elisabetta Mereu., et al. Benchmarking Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Protocols for Cell Atlas Projects Nature Biotechnology
DOI：10.1038/s41587-020-0469-4