Single-cell full-length TCR/BCR profiling assay with high sensitivity and CITE-seq compatibility enables deeper immune cell characterization

Abstract

Single-cell full-length TCR/BCR assays provide the ability to profile the highly diverse T cell receptor (TCR) and B cell receptor (BCR) repertoires of the adaptive immune response. The identification of T cell clonotype can be challenging due to insufficient sensitivity to detect low abundance TCR transcripts. Furthermore, cell type identification can be limited using only transcriptomic profiles.

Here, we present data with high resolution of TCR clonotype using a new highly sensitive TCR/BCR assay combined with CITE-seq using the BD™ AbSeq Assay. We profiled human and mouse T cells alongside whole transcriptome analyses with and without CITE-seq. The enhanced assay showed high clonotype detection with transcriptome-only profiling and with CITE-seq. Results also showed high gene expression correlation (R2>0.97), consistent library quality and mapping, and better resolution of cell subtype clustering with CITE-seq. Compared to transcriptome-only profiling, the coupling of surface protein expression with transcriptomic and clonal information of each cell provides deeper insights of the immune repertoire and enhances detection of cell subsets within a complex population. The results demonstrate the utility of our improved immune profiling assay with highly sensitive TCR/BCR detection for in-depth multiomics analyses of single cells.

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