PBMC Fixation and Processing for Chromium Single-Cell RNA Sequencing

Background: Interest in single-cell whole transcriptome analysis is growing rapidly, especially for profiling rare or heterogeneous populations of cells. In almost all reported works, investigators have used live cells which represent several inconveniences and limitations. Some recent cell fixation methods did not work with most primary cells including immune cells. Methods: The methanol-fixation and new processing method was introduced to preserve PBMCs for single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-Seq) analysis on 10X Chromium platform. Results: When methanol fixation protocol was broken up into three steps, we found that PBMC RNA was degraded during rehydration with PBS, not at cell fixation and up to three-month storage steps. Resuspension but not rehydration in 3X saline sodium citrate (SSC) buffer instead of PBS preserved PBMC RNA integrity and prevented RNA leakage. Diluted SSC buffer did not interfere with full-length cDNA synthesis. The methanol-fixed PBMCs resuspended in 3X SSC were successfully implemented into 10X Chromium standard scRNA-seq workflows with no elevated low quality cells and cell doublets. The fixation process did not alter the single-cell transcriptional profiles and gene expression levels. Major subpopulations classified by marker genes could be identified in fixed PBMCs at a similar proportion as in live PBMCs. This new fixation processing protocol was validated in CD8+ T cell and several other cell types. Conclusions: We expect that the methanol-based cell fixation procedure presented here will substantially enable complex experimental design with primary cells at single cell resolution. single cell RNA sequencing of PBMC, CD8+ T cell or KLM1 cell line after fixation with methonal and resuspension in SSC buffer