In-depth organic mass cytometry reveals differential contents of 3-hydroxybutanoic acid at the single-cell level
In-depth organic mass cytometry reveals differential contents of 3-hydroxybutanoic acid on single cell level. Single-cell transcriptome indicates the expression difference of BHB downstream anti-oxidative stress proteins such as MT2A while Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) assay validates positive relationship between BHB and target proteins, which suggests that contents heterogeneity of BHB may endow cancer cells with variant ability to resist surrounding oxidative stress. Our ID-organic cytoMS paves the way for deep single-cell metabolome profiling and the investigation of cancer physiological and pathological processes. Comprehensive single-cell metabolic profiling is critical for revealing phenotypic heterogeneity and elucidating molecular mechanisms of biological processes. However, single-cell metabolomics remains challenging because of the limited metabolites coverage and disability of isomer discrimination. Herein, we establish a novel single-cell metabolomics platform of in-depth organic mass cytometry (ID-organic cytoMS). Extended single-cell analysis time guarantees sufficient MS/MS acquisition for metabolites identification and the isomers discrimination with online high-throughput analysis, achieving the largest number of about 600 metabolites identified in single cells. Fine sub-typing of MCF-7 cells are first demonstrated by differential contents of 3-hydroxybutanoic acid (BHB) among clusters. Single-cell transcriptome indicates the expression difference of BHB downstream anti-oxidative stress proteins such as MT2A while Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) assay validates positive relationship between BHB and target proteins, which suggests that contents heterogeneity of BHB may endow cancer cells with variant ability to resist surrounding oxidative stress. Our ID-organic cytoMS paves the way for deep single-cell metabolome profiling and the investigation of cancer physiological and pathological processes. Overall design: 10?Genomics single cell transcriptome sequencing project was undertook by BGI sequencing platform. The distribution of the fragments size was checked by the Agilent 2100 bioanalyzer and the final products were sequenced using the DNBSEQTM platform.