TOKYO, Japan – 25 May 2019 – MGI participated in the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Workshop on Single Cell Biology in Tokyo and hosted a luncheon session on 21 May.
The session featured leading researchers in single-cell sequencing. Dr Sarah Teichmann of the Wellcome Sanger Institute presented her work on evaluating single-cell RNA sequencing workflows, highlighting the importance of coverage, sensitivity and specificity across platforms and protocols. She also introduced the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) initiative and encouraged broader international collaboration.
Dr Kedar Natarajan, Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, presented comparative analyses of SMART-Seq, STRT-Seq and MARS-Seq datasets generated on both Illumina and MGI sequencing platforms. His results showed that data from the BGISEQ-500 platform is highly consistent with established systems, supporting its use in large-scale projects such as the Human Cell Atlas. He also noted the cost advantages of MGI platforms in supporting high-throughput studies.
In a computational biology session, Dr Longqi Liu outlined the application of MGISEQ platforms in single-cell research, including tumour and developmental biology. He highlighted the use of rolling circle amplification-based DNA nanoball technology, which improves mapping rates and SNP calling accuracy in single-cell RNA sequencing data.
This approach also avoids index switching, a known issue in some sequencing workflows. As single-cell experiments rely on barcoding to distinguish individual cells, improved accuracy at this stage is critical. Dr Liu also demonstrated how combining DNA nanoball technology with long fragment read methods enables high-throughput full-length transcriptome analysis.
MGI continues to invest in advancing single-cell sequencing technologies, including improvements in library preparation, barcoding strategies, algorithms and data analysis, with a focus on higher accuracy, sensitivity and cost efficiency.
