Recent advances in single-cell epigenetic sequencing technology

Abstract

Single-cell sequencing technologies are important hot tools for decoding the heterogeneity of tissues, organs, cells and molecules, mainly based on the next-generation sequencing technology. It mainly includes single-cell genome sequencing, single-cell epigenome sequencing and single-cell transcriptome sequencing, along with the multi-omics single-cell sequencing technology. Epigenetics is an important regulatory link between genomics and cell phenotype. It plays a role in transcriptional regulation through chromatin accessibility, DNA and histone modification, nucleosome arrangement and three-dimensional conformation of chromatin. At present, researchers have developed a variety of single-cell sequencing techniques at epigenetic level, plotted multiple heterogeneity atlases at epigenetic level for several tissues, organs and cells, and have also primarily illuminated the determinant mechanisms for the heterogeneity of cell transcription at epigenetic level. In the future, with the applications of new single-cell sequencing technologies and new algorithms in life science and medical sicences, it is expected that the heterogeneity and the underlying molecular mechanisms of tissues, organs, cells and molecules will be decoded deeply.

Keywords

• single-cell sequencing
• epigenome
• transcriptome
• next-generation sequencing
• heterogeneity