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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 11, 2025

Detection of Copy Number Alterations Using Single Cell Sequencing

Detection of Copy Number Alterations Using Single Cell Sequencing

Published on: February 17, 2017

Single-cell somatic copy number variants in brain using different amplification methods and reference genomes.

Ester Kalef-Ezra^1,2, Zeliha Gozde Turan^1,2, Diego Perez-Rodriguez¹

¹Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London, UK.

Communications Biology

|October 9, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Somatic copy number variants (CNVs) exist in human brain cells. This study compared whole genome amplification methods, finding significant differences impacting CNV detection in both healthy and diseased brain tissue.

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Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization Array CGH for Detection of Genomic Copy Number Variants

Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization Array CGH for Detection of Genomic Copy Number Variants

Published on: February 21, 2015

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Genetics
Genomics

Background:

Somatic mutations, including copy number variants (CNVs), are present in the brain.
Studying these requires single-cell whole genome amplification (scWGA) before sequencing.

Purpose of the Study:

To compare the performance of PicoPLEX, primary template-directed amplification (PTA), and droplet multiple displacement amplification (MDA) for scWGA.
To assess the impact of different amplification methods and reference genomes on copy number variant (CNV) calling in human brain cells.

Main Methods:

Compared PicoPLEX, PTA, and droplet MDA across 93 human brain cortical nuclei.
Performed CNV calling on two multiple system atrophy brains and one control brain using varying reference genomes.

Main Results:

PTA demonstrated the broadest amplification, PicoPLEX the most even amplification, and distinct chimeric profiles were observed for each method.
20.6% of analyzed brain cells exhibited at least one megabase-scale CNV.
CNV detection varied based on the chosen whole genome amplification method and reference genome.

Conclusions:

The selection of scWGA method and reference genome is critical for accurate CNV calling in brain tissue.
Somatic CNVs are present in both healthy and diseased human brain cells, highlighting their biological relevance.