Abstract

Massively parallel single-cell RNA sequencing can precisely resolve cellular diversity in a high-throughput manner at low cost, but unbiased isolation of intact single cells from complex tissues such as adult mammalian brains is challenging. Here, we integrate sucrose-gradient-assisted purification of nuclei with droplet microfluidics to develop a highly scalable single-nucleus RNA-seq approach (sNucDrop-seq), which is free of enzymatic dissociation and nucleus sorting. By profiling ∼18,000 nuclei isolated from cortical tissues of adult mice, we demonstrate that sNucDrop-seq not only accurately reveals neuronal and non-neuronal subtype composition with high sensitivity but also enables in-depth analysis of transient transcriptional states driven by neuronal activity, at single-cell resolution, in vivo.

Hu, P., Fabyanic, E., Kwon, D. Y., Tang, S., Zhou, Z., & Wu, H. (2017). Dissecting Cell-Type Composition and Activity-Dependent Transcriptional State in Mammalian Brains by Massively Parallel Single-Nucleus RNA-Seq. Molecular cell, 68(5), 1006-1015.  R scripts for data analysis are available on GitHub repository (https://github.com/wulabupenn/Hu_MolCell_2017)