Sequencing Metrics of Human Genomes Extracted from Single Cancer Cells Individually Isolated in a Valveless Microfluidic Device

Sequencing the genomes of individual cells enables the direct determination of genetic heterogeneity amongst cells within a population. We have developed an injection-moulded valveless microfluidic device in which single cells from colorectal cell (LS174T, LS180 and RKO) lines and fresh colorectal cancers are individually trapped, their genomes extracted and prepared for sequencing, using multiple displacement amplification (MDA). Ninety nine percent of the DNA sequences obtained mapped to a reference human genome, indicating that there was effectively no contamination of these samples from non-human sources. In addition, most of the reads are correctly paired, with a low percentage of singletons (0.17 ± 0.06 %) and we obtain genome coverages approaching 90%. To achieve this high quality, our device design and process shows that amplification can be conducted in microliter volumes as long as extraction is in sub-nanoliter volumes. Our data also demonstrates that high quality single cell sequencing can be achieved using a relatively simple, inexpensive and scalable device.