Comparative performance of the BGI and Illumina sequencing technology for single-cell RNA-sequencing

To compare the performance of Illumina and BGI sequencing technologies for high-throughput single cell sequencing, four Chromium single cell libraries of the following human cell types: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hIPSC), cultured Trabecular MeshWork Cells (TMWC) and Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs), were sequenced on Illumina sequencers (NextSeq 500, NovaSeq 6000) and a BGI sequencer (MGISEQ-2000). The technologies were benchmarked based on sequencing quality, characterisation of cell populations within samples and for specific single cell analyses such as variant calling and detection of guide RNAs from pooled CRISPR screens.