Single Cell Methods Sequencing and Proteomics

From the first mRNA-Seq whole-transcriptome analysis in 2009, in less than 10 years, many new technologies and strategies have been rapidly developed in order to analyze the genome, transcriptome, and proteome of individual cells, scaling from few to hundreds of thousands of cells analyzed at a time. Since then, many new biological questions have opened, and many laboratories across the world have utilized single-cell genomics for their research, with a parallel massive increase in the number of publications regarding single cells. Keeping up with such a rapidly evolving technology is not an easy task, and for someone that enters the “single-cell field” for the first time, this might look like a maze, a jungle of choices and possibilities. The aim of this Methods in Molecular Biology (MIMB) book is to give readers a comprehensive overview of the available options for investigating biological questions at the level of individual cells and to help them in deciding which way is best to follow for different biological questions. Written by outstanding scientists in the field, the book is organized into eight parts that span from organizing a single-cell lab to performing single-cell DNA-Seq, RNA-Seq and proteomic experiments. The book also covers single-cell epigenetics, single cell multi-omics analysis, screening and live imaging of individual cells. Each chapter lists all the materials required for the experiment and describes every protocol in a detailed, step by step manner, with all the precautions that should to be taken when working with individual cells. The authors wrote every procedure for experts as well as for readers with no a priori knowledge, making each experiment simple to perform in every lab equipped with the listed instrumentation. With very rich and detailed “Note” sections, in which scientists included all the small tips and hints to best perform every protocol and to avoid common practical mistakes, I am confident that this book will represent a very powerful resource for any lab that will approach any experiment at the level of individual cells. I would like to thank Dr. Sarah Teichmann for introducing me to the “single-cell world,” Prof. John Walker for the opportunity to edit this book and for his constant guidance, and all the authors for their amazing job, their time and their effort to make this book as perfect and as comprehensive as possible.