NEW YORK – Element Biosciences on Thursday released a product roadmap for its Aviti24 multiomic analysis platform for the coming year, suggesting that it will soon be able to offer in situ RNA sequencing and the ability to assay fixed tissue samples.
The upgraded version of its Aviti sequencer, which was launched last April, offers the ability to assay cell morphology and expression of both RNA and proteins in cultured cells.
By the end of the year, Element will release a new assay for direct in sample sequencing (DiSS), which will enable library prep-free RNA-seq, either across the whole transcriptome or for targeted panels. The technology could be used for cell typing, CRISPR screens, and immune cell receptor profiling, among other applications.
Preceding this will be other improvements, including human immuno-oncology and neuroscience panels using the company's Teton chemistry, the ability to customize Teton panel protein targets, new protocols for more cell types, and a new 48-well consumable that enables researchers to process up to 96 samples per run.
"This is a pretty significant jump, having this modularity. You can start to add a lot of capabilities at one time into one run," Nicholas Banovich, a researcher at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) who is looking to adopt Aviti24, told GenomeWeb. "You have a workflow where you have 300 cycles, and you can plug and play these different capabilities in there, adding modules in until you get to the cycle maximum."
Moreover, Banovich is working with Element to make Aviti24 work with formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples. Besides FFPE, Element is trying to make other complex sample types compatible with Aviti24, such as tissue microarrays, organoids, and small and tall cells. "It's important that any company in the spatial transcriptomics game has their eye on FFPE," he said. "The bulk of the tissues out there, that's the format they're in." Exactly when researchers might be able to assay these sample types wasn't clear.
The planned updates show how Element is courting customers in the pharmaceutical industry, enabling relevant applications such as drug screens, CRISPR genome editing screens, and immune repertoire profiling. "We are hoping that this assay will help mitigate the amount of time required to get to [biological] insights and ultimately drop the number of drugs that are not successful" in clinical trials, Element Chief Technology Officer and Cofounder Mike Previte said during an online event on Thursday to present the product updates.
Element announced Aviti24 a year ago at the 2024 Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) meeting. Teton assays — previously only available for MAPK cell cycle and MAPK apoptosis analysis — can detect up to 350 RNAs, up to 50 proteins and phosphorylated proteins, and up to 20 cell morphology features. Researchers could assay up to 12 samples per flow cell with run times of less than 24 hours and 30 minutes of hands-on time.
Teton assays are currently only available for adherent cultured cells. However, soon they will be compatible with suspended cells, such as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), T cells, B cells, and bone marrow mononuclear cells. Element will also offer new cell segmentation models for adherent cells and PBMCs.
Customers will be able to add up to 88 proteins of their choice or choose from mini-panels of pre-designed sets of 24 protein targets.
DiSS improves upon existing methods for in situ sequencing, Element said, offering more bases, a faster workflow, and compatibility with "any species." The DiSS chemistry uses probes to target 3' poly-A RNAs and is compatible with cell paint and protein detection reagents. Users will also have the option to customize panels of targets for large screens.
Element said its method compared favorably to unbiased 3' RNA-seq using 10x Genomics' Chromium platform; however, it did not provide more details.
In proof-of-concept experiments using DiSS with CRISPR knockout screens, Element scientists were able to correlate phenotypic changes with specific CRISPR guide RNAs.
Banovich suggested that the DiSS method reminded him of Single-Cell Transcriptomics Analysis and Multimodal Profiling (STAMP), a high-throughput method developed by a trio of spatial biology labs, except that DiSS also offers the ability to sequence molecules like guide RNAs for CRISPR screens.
Being able to assay tissue across the whole transcriptome could put Element on a second collision course with Illumina, which earlier this week announced a new product for spatial transcriptomics in tissue using its own sequencing technology as a readout.