Droplet Insider vol. 2 –
Droplet-microfluidics-assisted transcriptome sequencing
of the HIV-Infected ‘Latent Reservoir’
We are honored to have Dr. Eli Boritz as the next speaker in the second volume of Droplet Insider.
Dr. Boritz and his team recently published a paper in Nature, which spotlights their application of a novel method to sort and analyze subsets of cell types based on RNA or DNA biomarkers. The team used this method to study mechanisms of HIV persistence under antiretroviral therapy, particularly the expression profiles of HIV-infected memory CD4 T cells.
The method, Focused Interrogation of cells by Nucleic acid Detection and Sequencing (FIND- seq), involves identifying cells by target nucleic acids (HIV in this study) and sorting them for single-cell resolution transcriptomic analysis.
The authors used microfluidics to create agarose gel beads to encapsulate the genetic material of individual cells and sorted the agarose beads based on the fluorescent signal of the HIV nucleic acid marker. The whole transcriptomes of cells are retained inside the agarose beads and can be analyzed by sequencing later.
The transcriptomes of HIV DNA+ memory CD4 T cells from people receiving antiretroviral therapy showed a distinctive population with host gene expression patterns that favour HIV silencing, cell survival and cell proliferation, with important implications for the development of HIV cure strategies
Join us in our upcoming webinar to hear more about FIND-seq and how HIV persists during antiretroviral therapy, from Dr. Boritz.
Time and date
April 27th: 08:00 PST, 11:00 EST, 16:00 GMT
What you will learn
- A novel method for RNA-sequencing in cell subsets, defined by RNA or DNA biomarkers.
- Application of FIND-seq in studying the transcriptomes of HIV-infected memory CD4 T cells.
- Findings in mechanisms of HIV persistence under antiretroviral therapy.
Speaker
Dr. Eli Boritz, M.D., Ph.D. – Chief, Virus Persistence and Dynamics Section (VPDS), National Institutes of Health (NIH)