Homo sapiens

We demonstrate the use of 5'-Acrydite oligonucleotides to copolymerize single cell DNA or RNA into balls of acrylamide gel (BAG). Combining this step with pool and split techniques for creating barcodes yields a method with advantages in cost and scalability, efficient use of samples, depth of coverage, and ease of operation. We successfully perform DNA copy number profiling on mixtures of cell lines, nuclei from frozen prostate tumors, and biopsy washes. As applied to RNA the method has high capture efficiency of transcripts and sufficient consistency to distinguish clearly the expression patterns of two cell lines. Using varietal tags to achieve sequence error-correction, we show extremely low levels of cross-contamination by tracking source-specific SNVs. The method is readily modified, and we will discuss its future improvements and diverse applications.