Small RNA transcriptome analysis by parallel single cell small RNA sequencing (PSCSR-seq)

miRNA and other forms of small RNA are now known to regulate many biological processes, and miRNA profiling is already used biomedically for cancer diagnosis, staging, progression, prognosis, and to evaluate responsivity to treatment. However, there is no robust analytical method capable of dissecting the individual miRNA expression profiles from the highly heterogeneous cells comprising tumor samples. Here, we developed parallel single cell small RNA sequencing (PSCSR-seq), which enables highly sensitive and high-throughput miRNA expression profiling of individual cells. We applied PSCSR-seq to examine the small RNA profiles from large numbers of cultured cancer cells, human PBMCs, and from a tumor in a melanoma mouse model. We anticipate that PSCSR-seq can be broadly applied for small RNA analysis in cancer research and more generally in life science. Overall design: small RNA transcriptome analysis in cancer cell lines, PBMCs, tumor tissue