HeLa-CCL2 cell heterogeneity studied by single-cell DNA and RNA sequencing

PLoS One. 2019 Dec 2;14(12):e0225466. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225466. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

The HeLa cells are the earliest and mostly used laboratory human cells for biomedical particularly cancer research. They were derived from a patient's cervical cancerous tissue, and are known for their heterogeneous cellular origin and variable genomic landscapes. Single-cell sequencing techniques with faithful linear and uniformly amplified genomes (DNA) and transcriptomes (RNA) may facilitate the study of cellular differences at the individual cell level. In this work, we have performed single-cell DNA and RNA sequencing with HeLa-CCL2 cells to study their heterogeneity. We have studied the complexity of copy number variations (CNVs) of HeLa-CCL2 genome at the single cell level, and revealed the transcriptomic heterogeneity of HeLa-CCL2. We also analyzed the relationship between genome and transcriptome at the single-cell level, and found overall correlation between CNV and transcriptome expression patterns. Finally, we concluded that although single-cell sequencing techniques are applicable to study heterogeneous cells such as HeLa-CCL2, the data analyses need to be more careful and well controlled.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cell Culture Techniques
  • Chemokine CCL2 / metabolism
  • DNA Copy Number Variations*
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Genetic Heterogeneity*
  • Genome, Human
  • HeLa Cells*
  • Humans
  • Karyotyping
  • Sequence Analysis, RNA
  • Single-Cell Analysis
  • Transcriptome / genetics*
  • Whole Genome Sequencing

Substances

  • CCL2 protein, human
  • Chemokine CCL2

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Key Research and Development Program of 364 China (2016YFC0906000 [2016YFC0906001] to XDS. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.