Customers Around the Globe Use Single Cell Analysis to Advance Knowledge of Human Biology
10x Genomics currently serves thousands of researchers in approximately 40 countries, and we plan to continue to expand to new international jurisdictions as part of our growth strategy. Much of this market growth comes from strong research collaborations in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, which includes China, Japan, Singapore, Australia and India.
Our company’s expanding global reach reflects the large and growing community of researchers within APAC who are turning to single cell genomics tools to interrogate biological systems at previously inaccessible resolution and scale. We wanted to take this opportunity to recognize two groups of scientists within APAC who are using technologies from 10x Genomics to advance knowledge of human biology.
Single Cell Analysis Reveals Heterogeneity of Pancreatic Cancer
Yupei Zhao, Yun-Gui Yang and Wenming Wu, with their colleagues from the Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, and Beijing Institute of Genomics, CAS, recently applied single cell RNA-Sequencing (scRNA-Seq) to study intra-tumoral heterogeneity and malignant progression in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, or PDAC. Using the Chromium Single Cell Gene Expression solution, they studied the transcriptomic atlas of 57,530 individual pancreatic cells from 24 primary PDAC tumor biopsies and 11 control biopsies, and identified diverse malignant and stromal cell types, including two ductal subtypes with abnormal and malignant gene expression profiles respectively (1). Notably, variable gene expression between these ductal cell types affected several known cancerous pathways, and suppressed tumor-related T cell activation, pointing to a possible mechanism for cancer evolution and providing novel markers to inform prediction of the antitumor immune response.
Optimizing Organoid Culture Conditions
Despite traditional challenges in maintaining differentiated cell types in human intestinal organoids, Toshiro Sato and colleagues from Keio University in Tokyo have established a refined organoid culture condition, which includes insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2), or IF, for intestinal epithelia that allows human intestinal organoids to concurrently undergo multi-differentiation and self-renewal (2). Using scRNA-Seq, the research team found that IF-cultured organoids capture most, if not all, of the cellular diversity and cell-specific gene expression present in the native intestinal tissue. Their methods not only outperform conventional culture conditions, but also offer a viable strategy for modeling human intestinal tissues and diseases in an in vivo-relevant context.
Thank you to our customers in APAC!
In this century of biology, the most complex and critical questions in human health are increasingly being tackled by global, collaborative research, in which discovery is driven by the broad accessibility of high impact tools and open source data. To this end, 10x Genomics is committed to making our products available to customers throughout the world. In the APAC region, these efforts include engaging with regional distributors, expanding our sales, marketing and support teams in the region, and most recently, translating our corporate website into Japanese and Chinese. This will make all of our research solutions increasingly visible and accessible for scientists in China and Japan.
To our global consortium of researchers, professors and innovative institutions breaking biological ground with 10x Genomics tools, we look forward to a productive future as we continue to support your work.
To view 10x Genomics’ translated corporate website, with product details and helpful resources, go to www.10xgenomics.com/jp for Japanese, and www.10xgenomics.com/cn for Chinese.
- J. Peng, B.F. Sun, C.Y. Chen et al., Single-cell RNA-seq highlights intra-tumoral heterogeneity and malignant progression in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Cell Research (2019).
- M. Fujii, M. Matano, K. Toshimitsu et al., Human Intestinal Organoids Maintain Self-Renewal Capacity and Cellular Diversity in Niche-Inspired Culture Condition. Cell Stem Cell. 23, 787–793 (2018).