Droplet microfluidics for precise and high throughput whole genome amplification toward single-cell genome sequencing

Single-cell genomics has enabled the exploration of cellular diversity in a broad range of biological samples including tumor and environmental microbes. However, next-generation sequencing (NGS) typically requires nanogram to microgram levels of input DNA. Since single cells contain only a few femtograms (microbe) to picograms (mammalian) of DNA, whole genome amplification (WGA) is required to amplify single-cell genome to adequate amount for sequencing. In addition, high-throughput genome amplification is required to obtain various data from heterogeneous cell populations. To address these problems, we aimed to develop novel system for precise and high throughput single-cell genomics, to elucidate environmental microbial diversity. In this study, we have developed droplet-based microfluidic system to produce the compartmentalized reaction environments for single-cell whole genome amplification.