Optimized Nuclei Isolation from Fresh and Frozen Solid Tumor Specimens for Multiome Sequencing

As our knowledge of tumor biology grows and interest to understand the intricacies of how cells interact within the tumor and influence patient outcomes, the importance of analyzing heterogeneous cells across the tumor microenvironment has also increased. Multiome sequencing, which permits the acquisition of single cell RNA and attack sequencing from the same cell in a paired cell fashion provides a significant advance towards this end. However, the quality of the data obtained from these experiments is highly dependent on the quality of the experimental conditions and inputted biological material.

This protocol provides a reliable and optimized approach to the isolation of nuclei from solid tumor specimens for multiome sequencing using the 10x Genomics platform. This protocol is reliable using either fresh or frozen single cell suspensions. We provide recommendations for tissue dissociation conditions, cryopreservation of single cell suspensions, and assessment of isolated nuclei.

In this protocol, we used human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma specimens, which are a primary tissue type of focus in our laboratory. Pancreas cancer represents a highly desmoplastic tumor type, which portends relatively sticky tissue as well as cells. Moreover, as pancreatic tumor specimens available for research also tend to be relatively small, efforts are made to maximize the quantity of the cells captured.