Analysis of environmental bacteria at single-cell level

Single-cell genomics has enabled the exploration of cellular diversity in environmental microbes. However, current genome sequencing techniques, which utilizes next-generation sequencing (NGS), typically require nanogram to microgram levels of input DNA sample. Since single bacterial cells contain only a few femtograms of DNA, we have to amplify their genomes to adequate amount for sequencing. We aimed to develop a novel system for precise and high throughput single-cell genomics, to elucidate environmental microbial diversity. In this study, we have developed droplet-based microfluidic system to produce the compartmentalized reaction vessels for single-cell genome sequencing.