Chinese researchers improve ease of sequencing genome of single bacterial cells

In China, sequencing the genome of single bacterial cells has long been technically difficult due to the seemingly unalterable bias in the gene amplification stage of the process, making it hard to produce high-coverage genome sequence from precisely just one bacterial cell.

A new process developed by researchers at the Single-Cell Center, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), greatly reduces that bias, opening up whole new vistas of single-cell research. Their study was published in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology on June 29.