Abstract 2930: Recovery of limited viable cells from low-quality precious samples for scRNA-seq
Authors: Egidio Camila , Bhosale Dinesh , Shen Lanxin , Jett Susana , Malek Amir , de Groot Teddy , Weaver Suzanne , Sun Gang , Travers Kevin , Facer Geoff 
Published: March 2024

Biomarker discovery is a critical milestone in pursuing personalized and targeted cancer treatments, yet it faces formidable challenges hindering success rates. Limited access to high-quality samples restricts in-depth biological investigation, with scarce and compromised viable cells acting as barriers to progress. Levitation Technology™ addresses these challenges by significantly improving sample quality and preserving maximum viable cells for single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). This innovative approach overcomes limitations in sample quality and availability and heralds a new era of possibilities, propelling significant advancements in biomarker discovery for personalized cancer treatment.

To assess the performance of Levitation Technology using the LeviCell® 1.0 system, 105 cryopreserved samples derived from diseased human tissues were processed by Discovery Life Sciences™. This diverse sample set covered 20 disease indications, including 17 types of cancer. A staggering 70% of the samples (n=74) exhibited cell viability ranging between 14-69%, underscoring the need for enhanced viability for effective scRNA-seq analysis. Notably, 45 of these samples presented fewer than 500,000 cells, a scenario marked by low quality and limited viable cells. Traditional methods fail to recover viable cells from such samples without considerable or complete viable cell loss. After processing the samples with the LeviCell 1.0 system, all samples had improved quality, with an impressive 90% of the most difficult samples (n=40) presenting a viability increase to 70-94%, meeting the minimum quality criteria for scRNA-seq. A notable success story was a particular breast cancer sample with only 31,000 cells and 14% viability. Processing with the LeviCell 1.0 system yielded 13,300 viable cells and a substantial 4.5-fold increase in viability to 64%. Such enhancements in sample quality translate into significant improvements in scRNA-seq data quality, enabling more single-cell data extraction from each invaluable sample.

Levitation Technology represents a paradigm shift in sample processing, rescuing even the most challenging samples. This groundbreaking technology maximizes the retention of viable cells while efficiently eliminating dead cells and debris, factors that have traditionally compromised scRNA-seq data quality. By revolutionizing this aspect of sample preparation, Levitation Technology opens up unparalleled opportunities to explore deeper into disease biology, providing a leap forward in biomarker discovery.

Citation Format: Camila Egidio, Dinesh Bhosale, Lanxin Shen, Susana Jett, Amir Malek, Teddy de Groot, Suzanne Weaver, Gang Sun, Kevin Travers, Geoff Facer. Recovery of limited viable cells from low-quality precious samples for scRNA-seq [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 2930.