Calibrating genomic and allelic coverage bias in single-cell sequencing

Artifacts introduced in whole-genome amplification (WGA) make it difficult to derive accurate genomic information from single-cell genomes and require different analytical strategies from bulk genome analysis. Here, we describe statistical methods to quantitatively assess the amplification bias resu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhang, Cheng-Zhong, Francis, Joshua, Cornils, Hauke, Jung, Joonil, Maire, Cecile, Ligon, Keith L., Meyerson, Matthew, Adalsteinsson, Viktor A., Love, John C
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111665
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4555-2485
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0921-3144
Description
Summary:Artifacts introduced in whole-genome amplification (WGA) make it difficult to derive accurate genomic information from single-cell genomes and require different analytical strategies from bulk genome analysis. Here, we describe statistical methods to quantitatively assess the amplification bias resulting from whole-genome amplification of single-cell genomic DNA. Analysis of single-cell DNA libraries generated by different technologies revealed universal features of the genome coverage bias predominantly generated at the amplicon level (1–10 kb). The magnitude of coverage bias can be accurately calibrated from low-pass sequencing (∼0.1 × ) to predict the depth-of-coverage yield of single-cell DNA libraries sequenced at arbitrary depths. We further provide a benchmark comparison of single-cell libraries generated by multi-strand displacement amplification (MDA) and multiple annealing and looping-based amplification cycles (MALBAC). Finally, we develop statistical models to calibrate allelic bias in single-cell whole-genome amplification and demonstrate a census-based strategy for efficient and accurate variant detection from low-input biopsy samples.