Single Cell Nanobiopsies
“Here, we [a collaboration of several British universities] present a nanobiopsy platform that enables the injection of exogenous molecules and multigenerational longitudinal cytoplasmic sampling from a single cell and its progeny. The technique is based on scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) and, as a proof of concept, was applied to longitudinally profile the transcriptome of single glioblastoma (GBM) brain tumor cells in vitro over 72 hours. The GBM cells were biopsied before and after exposure to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and our results suggest that treatment either induces or selects for more transcriptionally stable cells. We envision the nanobiopsy will contribute to transforming standard single-cell transcriptomics from a static analysis into a dynamic assay.” MORE
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