Single cell sequencing: technique, application, and future development

The progression of next generation sequencing is continuously changing the landscape of genomic, transcriptomic, and epigenomic studies. Particularly, advances in single cell manipulation and amplification techniques bring sequencing technology to the single-cell level. Single cell genome sequencing allows us to study tumor evolution, gamete genesis, somatic mosaicism at genome-wide level; single cell transcriptome sequencing unveils the dynamic gene expression during early embryonic development, differentiation and reprogramming; single cell methylome sequencing is just taking off and shows great potential in cancer and stem cell studies. Lots of attempts are still being made in other dimensions of sequencing. The increasing need for single cell sequencing requires the future techniques with the following features: (1) high accuracy and fidelity; (2) able to perform multiple omics analyses in one cell; (3) high degree of automation and standardized pipeline. These progresses and improvements will lower the barrier for single cell sequencing to enter ordinary laboratories. The wide application of single cell sequencing techniques will substantially change biomedical research in future.