Single Cell & Spatial Biology

The service is open to both internal and external users from academic, commercial organisations and industries.

If you are considering running a single-cell analysis experiment, we strongly encourage you to get in touch with us as soon as possible.

The importance of single-cell analysis

For many years the main limitation of -omics technologies was the amount of input material required by these methods. This problem was overcome by pooling large numbers of cells/nuclei to obtain the required amount of material to perform an experiment. The result of this approach was average measurements of each parameter over multiple cells. Recent developments allow researchers to perform individual measurements on each individual cell (or nucleus) within a pool, leading to higher definition datasets that allow the identification of new cell types and molecular mechanisms, and to describe the heterogeneity of biological samples.

Our services

• Experiment planning. We offer support in the identification of the most suitable workflows, reagents and starting material (cells vs nuclei), and of the number of conditions/replicates. Please get in touch  if you need support and costing for grant/funding applications.
• Sample prep optimisation. The quality of the input material is the most critical factor for the success of a single-cell analysis workflow. We closely collaborate with our users to ensure that their samples are of adequate quality.
• Procurement of consumables/equipment. Single-cell analysis reagents can be expensive. It generally costs us less to order these reagents in bulk and we normally buy these for our users. Please get in touch and we will provide you with a quote for your experiment.
• From samples to libraries:
  • Single-cell or single nuclei transcriptomics (3’ and 5’ scRNA-seq, snRNA-seq)
  • Single-cell genomics (scATAC-seq)
  • Combined single-cell genomics and transcriptomics (10X Genomics “Multiome”)
  • Other single-cell multi-omics (CITE-seq, perturb-seq, CRISPR library screens, VDJ/BCR profiling…)
  • Spatial transcriptomics (10X Genomics “Visium”)
• QC and quantification. We QC and quantify all libraries to ensure their quality before returning them to the user or sending for sequencing.  
• Bioinformatic analysis. We are now able to offer bioinformatic support for the analysis of single-cell experiments. Due to the high volume of requests, this service is only available on first-come first-served basis. Please get in touch for further details.  
• Sequencing. We do not offer any sequencing service. This is available in Edinburgh from Edinburgh Genomics  and from the Edinburgh CRF Genetics Core based at WGH.  
• Bulk experiments. We do not offer any support for bulk genomics and transcriptomics experiment. This type of service can be obtained from other sequencing facilities and private labs.