The "SEISMIC" facility for Spatially rEsolved sIngle and Sub-cellular oMICs

在生物系统分析中，一个令人兴奋的创新是在非常小的纳米尺度上使用专门的针（纳米毛细管采样）进行采样。细胞被放置在专门的（共聚焦）显微镜下，细胞甚至细胞的一小部分都可以被取样。这独特地提供了空间信息，可以在活细胞上进行，这将使科学家能够理解重要的生物现象，如细胞如何相互交流以及细胞如何癌变。我们称之为SEISMIC的资源将提供一个基于纳米毛细管采样的自动化平台。我们将与英国研究界的用户合作，在显微镜下提取单细胞及其亚细胞区室。提取的细胞物质可以使用多种方法进行分析，例如质谱法，它通过质量和电荷分离分子来分析例如药物、代谢物和脂质，或者应用其他技术来分析核酸。这将使我们对细胞有一个前所未有的认识，并可以应用于大量的生物学问题，这些问题可以告诉我们诸如生命的规则或病原体如何引起疾病或细胞如何衰老，这些信息可以用来开发新的治疗干预措施，最终使社会受益。地震资源将在前36个月内免费提供给BBSRC用户，无论是否附带下游质谱分析。用户将能够使用萨里的设备进行实验，并通过旅行补助金来支持对地震的实际访问。该设施将是英国首个此类设施，因此将在保持英国世界领先的科学方面发挥作用。

An exciting innovation in the analysis of a biological system is sampling on a very small nanoscale using a specialised needle (nano capillary sampling). Cells are located under a specialised (confocal) microscope and cells or even small parts of cells can be sampled. This uniquely provides spatial information and can be performed on living cells which will allow scientists to understand important biological phenomenon such as how cells communicate with each other and how cells become cancerous. Our resource which we have called SEISMIC will provide an automated platform based on nano capillary sampling. We will work with users within the UK research community to extract single cells and their sub- cellular compartments under a microscope. The extracted cellular materials can be analysed using a variety of approaches such as mass spectrometry which separates molecules by mass and charge to profile for example drugs, metabolites and lipids or apply other techniques to profile nucleic acids. This will allow an unprecedented view of cells and can be applied to a plethora of biological questions which inform us on for example the rules of life or how pathogens cause disease or how cells age, information which can be harnessed to develop new therapeutic interventions which will ultimately benefit society.The SEISMIC resource will be available free of charge to BBSRC users for the first 36 months, either with or without downstream mass spectrometry analysis. Users will be able to perform their experiments using the facilities at Surrey, and hands on access to SEISMIC will be supported through travel grants. This facility will be the first of its kind in the UK and therefore will play a role in maintaining world leading science in the UK.