Exciting new single-cell solutions from Takara Bio
Shasta™ kits
The first single-cell kit I used in the lab years ago was Takara Bio USA, Inc.'s SMART-seq kit. It's a full-length RNA-seq kit that's evolved over time. This kit has always been versatile, allowing manual use with 96 or 384-well plates, or automated use. For automation, for example, Takara Bio offers the ICELL8 cx Single-Cell system, a single-cell nanowell-based instrument compatible with this kit and others.
Last February, the company announced the launch of two new single-cell solutions. One for RNA and the other for DNA-seq. In this blog, I will give some details about it.
The Goal
Takara’s Bio goal in developing these new single-cell solutions was to enable the discovery of novel biomarkers for cancer prediction, prognosis, and treatment.
The Promise
These will be automated solutions (ICELL8 cx Single-Cell system) and the promises are: higher throughput, reduced hands-on time, and enhanced information capture compared to existing technologies. Both kits will offer us an end-to-end solution.
The Kits
Shasta™ Total RNA-Seq Kit
100,000 single cells per run
Up to 96 samples/experiment
Coding and non-coding RNA
Full-length mRNA
Detection of splicing isoforms and gene fusions
Includes specific Cogent™ bioinformatics tools
Fast (2 rounds of barcoding)
Shasta™ Whole-Genome Amplification Kit
1,500 single cells per run
Up to 8 samples/run
DNA
Non targeted approach
Detection of Copy Number Variation (CNV), chromosomal aneuploidies, and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP)
Includes specific Cogent™ bioinformatics tools
For the moment, early access is open. If these kits are as good as they promise, they might be1 the first full-length RNA-seq and whole-genome amplification high-scale solutions.
It might be, because in the single-cell world, we never know if other solutions will show up tomorrow. It is an unpredictable world 😉