Phospho-seq: integrated, multi-modal profiling of intracellular protein dynamics in single cells

Abstract

Abstract Cell signaling plays a critical role in neurodevelopment, regulating cellular behavior and fate. While multimodal single-cell sequencing technologies are rapidly advancing, scalable and flexible profiling of cell signaling states alongside other molecular modalities remains challenging. Here we present Phospho-seq, an integrated approach that aims to quantify cytoplasmic and nuclear proteins, including those with post-translational modifications, and to connect their activity with cis-regulatory elements and transcriptional targets. We utilize a simplified benchtop antibody conjugation method to create large custom neuro-focused antibody panels for simultaneous protein and scATAC-seq profiling on whole cells, alongside both experimental and computational strategies to incorporate transcriptomic measurements. We apply our workflow to cell lines, induced pluripotent stem cells, and months-old retinal and brain organoids to demonstrate its broad applicability. We show that Phospho-seq can provide insights into cellular states and trajectories, shed light on gene regulatory relationships, and help explore the causes and effects of diverse cell signaling in neurodevelopment.