10x Genomics, Inc. introduced its 2021-2022 product lineup during Xperience 2021, a special presentation Wednesday with an audience of nearly 2,700.
10x Genomics, Inc.
introduced its 2021-2022 product lineup during Xperience 2021, a special presentation Wednesday with an audience of nearly 2,700.
In addition to discussing a new platform, dubbed In Situ Analysis, still in development, the company also announced major additions to its Chromium Single Cell and Visium (spatial) analysis platforms.
Within hours of that presentation, 10x Genomics also announced the acquisition of its fifth company, Copenhagen-based Tetramer Shop.
“This gives us additional insights and capabilities into screening the immune system, providing our customers with MHC molecules than can be loaded with custom peptides for therapeutics and diagnostics,” Ben Hindson, Ph.D., co-founder and CSO at 10x Genomics, told BioSpace.
Each of those announcements advance 10x Genomics’ overarching goal of developing affordable products that fit into the workflows of any lab, with new capabilities that dramatically enhance resolution at the single cell, tissue and molecular level to support broader single cell adoption.
“Looking at the Twitter feeds (after Xperience 2021), people are very excited not just about single cell analysis, but also spatial analysis and the ability to analyze formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue,” Hindson said. “That will open a wide variety of sample cohorts.”
The Visium platform additions are among the most exciting. Three new products are launching, and one is still in development.
Visium is based on the need for greater resolution. During the new product presentation, James Chell, Ph.D., senior scientist, R&D, noted that the problem with sampling small regions of interest within samples is that, “It’s easy to miss key details by never capturing the full picture. It’s like looking through a keyhole. Visium opens the door, providing a full overview of the tissue…capturing data across the full transcriptome.”
Visium for FFPE ships Q2 2021 for human and mouse tissue. It provides full coverage of the tissue sample at high sensitivity, for whole transcriptome analysis, as well as simultaneous detection of proteins and non-polyA-based chemistry. Data shows excellent correlation with fresh tissue, Chell said.
This version measures 5,000 regions in parallel, without the need to pre-selectin the regions or interest. Each Visium spot is 55 microns in diameter.
“By making Visium available as many sample types as possible, including FFPE (which make up the vast majority of samples collected in the clinic) we are opening up access to biobank samples across every disease area,” Chell said.
Visium HD, launching 1H 2022, is a single-cell resolution and spatial transcriptomics product that supports FFPE and fresh frozen samples on the whole transcriptome, targeted and multiplexed protein assays.
“The VisiumHD offers a 1,500-fold resolution increase from our original products and 400-fold more than what’s on the market now,” Hindson told BioSpace.
Visium CytAssist is a benchtop device to let users stain and pre-screen tissue sections mounted on standard microscope slides before beginning gene or protein expression analysis. Launch is scheduled for 1H 2022.
A fourth product, Visium Spatial, is still in development. Its launch date has not been set. It provides whole transcriptome resolution.
Visium Spatial evolved from the 2020 acquisition of ReadCoor and CartaNA.
“We are working diligently to add our R&D energy to it,” Hindson said.
It includes the instrument, reagents and software, along with a limited service offering from CartaNA.
For single cell analysis, 10x Genomic is expanding its Chromium products.
This new version of the Chromium instrument is designed to make million-cell experiments routine and affordable. It is scheduled to launch 2H 2021.
The Chromium X HT (high throughput) and LT (low throughput) kits for gene expression and immune profiling also were introduced. The LT is expected to ship the first half of this year, and the HT is expected to ship the second half of this year.
“The HT kit runs million-cell experiments, while the LT kit interrogates up to 1,000 cells per sample. The LT kit offers lower cost and lower throughput at about 60% of the cost of the existing kit,” Hindson explained. With these two options, users can “optimize tests for sample types before graduating to more detailed, expensive experiments.”
“Wrapping (all these analyses) together with Cloud Analysis to make it accessible to scientists without loading multiple packages and scrips,” is important, too, he said. The goal is to make each part of the workflow – including data analysis – seamless. Therefore, “We provide turnkey analysis.” The Cloud Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application launched last year for select customers and now is available to all.
In the coming years, “We plan to invest heavily in the In Situ Analysis platform,” Nikhil Rao, Ph.D., director, product management, said during the new product presentation. “By focusing on a subset of genes, researchers can detect the localization of gene signals more precisely…zooming in to see more detail, such as groups of cells, individual cells, and eventually inside the cells. By focusing on a few immune cell markers, you can see the immune cell distribution in the context of the entire tissue section and see the RNA molecules within the cells.”
This In Situ platform will help scientist further refine the data from Chromium and Visium, ultimately creating maps to improve the understanding of cell biology and disease.
10x Genomics estimates it has immediate solutions for a $15 billion market. There are another $10 billion market for in situ analysis and a global life sciences market of about $60 billion. Therefore, Hindson said, “There are so many opportunities. The challenge is prioritizing.”
