Mission Bio Announces the First-Ever Peer-Reviewed Study Demonstrating the Power of High Throughput Single-Cell DNA Analysis

Mission Bio, Inc., the pioneer in high-throughput single-cell DNA analysis and precision genomics, today announced a first-of-its-kind study demonstrating its ability to perform single-cell DNA analysis at speed and scale orders of magnitude higher than prior methods. The study, published in Genome Research and co-authored by researchers at Mission Bio and MD Anderson Cancer Center, illustrates its Tapestri platform’s ability to identify the evolution of cellular mutations in Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) tumors. This study provides unprecedented insight into the cells that drive complex diseases like cancer and opens the door to the routine sequencing of tumors. 

Tumors are made up of many individual cells that evolve and mutate as the disease progresses, so understanding exactly how each cell is different is paramount to creating effective, personalized treatments. However, the current standard for cancer genetic sequencing is limited to bulk processing – a technique that relies on averages among cells and therefore misses the underlying genetic diversity that drives the disease. Mission Bio has developed a targeted platform that enables researchers and clinicians to analyze thousands of individual cells in parallel – at one-tenth the cost of whole-genome sequencing, and 50 times higher resolution than traditional bulk sequencing techniques.

“The Tapestri Platform performed beyond our expectations,” said Koichi Takahashi, MD, co-author of the study and Assistant Professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center. “Up to now, single-cell DNA sequencing required complex, expensive, and enormously time-consuming home-brew techniques. With Mission Bio’s novel microfluidics approach, we now have a scalable technology that’s fast and simple enough for routine use. I am excited about the potential of this platform to help us better understand the genetic heterogeneity of a disease and how it impacts the disease progression and choice of therapies.”

To demonstrate the capability and applications of the Tapestri Platform technology, the researchers performed single-cell DNA analysis on longitudinal samples from AML patients and genotyped up to 62 disease relevant loci across more than 16,000 single cells. 

The study shows that Tapestri accurately uncovered complex clonal evolution within the AML tumors, unobservable with traditional bulk Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS). Tapestri was able to perform analysis in just two days that previously took researchers in the field two years, highlighting capability for routine use.

“This groundbreaking research demonstrates, for the first time, the power of single-cell DNA analysis to uncover how clones in complex diseases like cancer evolve,” said Charlie Silver, CEO Mission Bio.  “We have been excited to collaborate with Dr. Takahashi and his team and look forward to our continued work together. While this study focused on AML, our customers have already shown that our Tapestri Platform has broad application across oncology and genome editing.  We are thrilled to demonstrate Tapestri’s great potential to support our customers in delivering to patients the right treatment at the right time.”

Beyond cancer treatment, Tapestri’s single-cell analysis holds enormous promise in the advancement of CRISPR genomic research and editing. CRISPR Cas9 has been heralded for its applications in gene editing, but studies have found that the tool may have unintended harmful effects, inadvertently causing edits and rearranging the DNA it targets. 

With visibility into the DNA of single cells, scientists can rapidly examine and characterize the precise consequences of their gene editing experiments across individual cells. This capability enables researchers and drug developers to detect the off-target effects of gene editing, focusing instead on CRISPR’s potential to treat disease. As gene therapeutics become more prevalent, this technology could accurately quantify edited cells to inform the development and increase the efficacy of treatments.

The news comes on the heels of Mission Bio’s Tapestri technology being adopted by the top cancer centers in the United States. The company has additionally received several grants from the NIH and NSF supporting its work in single-cell biology. In October 2017, the company announced its Series A funding to support the commercialization of Tapestri.

To learn more about Mission Bio and how it’s moving precision medicine forward, visit www.missionbio.com.

You can view the peer-reviewed study here.

About Mission Bio

Mission Bio helps researchers and clinicians unlock single-cell biology to enable the discovery, development, and delivery of precision medicine with Tapestri, the Precision Genomics Platform. Tapestri provides industry-first single-cell DNA analysis capability to enable the accelerated and accessible detection of genetic heterogeneity within and across cells populations for applications in oncology, immunology, and genome editing. The platform includes an instrument, consumables and software, which plug seamlessly into existing NGS workflows. With Mission Bio, researchers have a highly sensitive, targeted, and customizable solution to move precision medicine forward.

Contact Information

Kathryn Ryan

Senior Account Executive

VSC for Mission Bio

missionbio@vscconsulting.com