Validation of single-cell transcriptomic profiles from Illumina and MGI Tech sequencing platforms

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Transcriptomics
• Biotechnology

Background:

• Illumina is the standard for high-throughput short-read sequencing.
• MGI Tech presents a lower-cost sequencing alternative.
• The comparative impact of these platforms on biological insights, especially in heterogeneous samples, is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the performance of MGI Tech and Illumina sequencing platforms for single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq).
• To evaluate the impact of sequencing platform choice on biological insights derived from heterogeneous cancer samples.

Main Methods:

• Generation of single-cell RNA-seq libraries from three human cancer samples using both Illumina and MGI Tech platforms.
• Application of cell quality controls.
• Analysis of clustering and gene expression patterns.

Main Results:

• Both platforms yielded similar accuracy, sensitivity, and reproducibility.
• Platform-specific cell populations emerged post-quality control, but did not influence overall clustering or gene expression analysis.
• Sequencing platform choice did not significantly alter biological insights from the analyzed samples.

Conclusions:

• MGI Tech provides transcriptomic profiles comparable to Illumina.
• MGI Tech is a viable and reliable option for high-throughput sequencing applications.
• The choice between MGI Tech and Illumina does not appear to significantly impact scRNA-seq analysis outcomes in this context.