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May 13, 2022

Using Single Cell Analysis in COVID-19 Immunity Studies

Researchers have attempted to tackle COVID-19 from various angles. One of the most useful and impactful ways in which biomedical scientists investigate the disease is through studies on the immune system. Immunity studies provide information directly applicable to human health and the development of therapeutics and treatments to combat the pandemic.

Single cell analysis amplifies the detail and usability of data extracted from COVID-19 immunity studies, which can, in turn, lead to advanced biomedical and health solutions. This blog post will outline why single cell analysis is advantageous in immunity studies, as well as how immunologists can apply innovative single cell analysis techniques while researching COVID-19.

Advantages of Single Cell Analysis in Immunity Studies
Single cell analysis is when scientists approach cellular biology from the level of an individual cell. Insight into the transcriptome, proteome and metabolism of single cells and information on cell-to-cell interactions can be provided by properly performing single cell analysis. This may also be carried out in combination with spatial analysis. All this information is useful when conducting immunity studies.

For example, by understanding how cells work from an individual cell perspective, more information can be gathered about how cells respond to other cells as well as the biological environment in which they reside. Furthermore, single cell analysis can specifically reveal how cells can work together within their biological environment, thereby providing health research experts with a powerful diagnostic tool.

In the case of COVID-19, single cell analysis could reveal how cells react to the virus individually and how immune cells coordinate attacks against the detrimental viral invader. It will also help reveal how the virus interacts and compromises individual immune cells to cause the COVID-19 disease. Thanks to advanced single cell analysis, with this additional knowledge, further developments can be made to treat COVID-19.

In order to effectively conduct single cell analysis, especially for applications in COVID-19 immunity studies, cutting-edge technology is needed to enable data extraction from IF/HE/IHC processed tissue samples to study complex tissue microenvironments. The following section will highlight a tissue cytometry platform developed by TissueGnostics, a leader in biological analysis solutions, which is able to perform single cell analysis and ensure accurate, high-quality data in COVID-19 immunity studies.

Single Cell Analysis With TissueGnostics
TissueGnostics provides clients with high-end tissue cytometers capable of the acquisition of IF/HE/IHC processed tissue samples and image analysis solutions specifically developed to meet client needs for accurate, cohesive, and detailed single cell analysis for immunity studies .

In-depth image analysis solutions such as the FISH Dots APP , allow detailed visualization of nuclei within individual cells. Measured parameters per nucleus can include information on size, compactness, and the number of stained dots within the nucleus and/or cytoplasm.

Precise single cell analysis is ensured by the many advantages of the tissue cytometer product line. As such, complex assays can be performed, and molecular single-cell profiling and quantification of intracellular pathogens like the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be carried out.

References
• https://tissuegnostics.com/products
•  https://tissuegnostics.com/en/products/imaging-software/170-tissuefaxs-imaging-software
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pmc/articles/PMC5136769/

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