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

While Illumina is currently used for high-throughput short-read sequencing, MGI Tech have developed a similar sequencing method at a lower cost. Comparisons of the two platforms revealed that their accuracy, sensitivity, and reproducibility are very similar, but the impact of each on biological insights, particularly in heterogeneous samples, remains unknown. Illumina and MGI Tech were used to generate single-cell RNA-seq libraries from three human cancer samples. While unique platform-specific cells arise after additional cell quality controls, the chosen sequencing platform did not affect either clustering or gene expression analyses. In conclusion, MGI Tech delivers transcriptomic profiles similar to those of Illumina and can be confidently used for high-throughput applications.