Accurate identification of single-nucleotide variants in whole-genome-amplified single cells.

Mutation analysis in single-cell genomes is prone to artifacts associated with cell lysis and whole-genome amplification. Here we addressed these issues by developing single-cell multiple displacement amplification (SCMDA) and a general-purpose single-cell-variant caller, SCcaller (https://github.com/biosinodx/SCcaller/). By comparing SCMDA-amplified single cells with unamplified clones from the same population, we validated the procedure as a firm foundation for standardized somatic-mutation analysis in single-cell genomics.