Single-cell sequencing (SCS) is a promising new technique that emerged to evaluate genomics, transcriptomics, epigenetics and other multi-omics at the single-cell level. 

It can elucidate the immune microenvironment, reveal the pathomechanisms of disease and drug resistance and can profile the actual state of an individual cell and identify a novel cell type and differentiation trajectories, which is impossible to achieve by bulk tissue sequencing technique. 

SCS technique can help to explore more meaningful biomarkers of diagnosis, prognosis and new therapeutic targets in clinical practice. It is now been widely used in the field of dermatology. 

Its applications in dermatology include:

• Assisting in the study of skin development in healthy as well as diseased conditions with the accuracy of the single-cell resolution
• Uncovering new subsets and roles of keratinocytes, hair follicles and immune cells
• Explaining the pathogenesis of diverse skin diseases
• Demonstrating the relations between pathogenic microorganisms and hosts in cases of infectious dermatoses
• Exploring the heterogeneity, development, drug resistance mechanism and prediction of skin cancers. 

The application of SCS technology in genomics and epigenomics of skin still demands much research. Since, a majority of the available studies use single-omics; developing multi-omics features of a single cell will help in understanding the “identity”. This method will generate high-throughput analysis in genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics and proteomics of single cells at different omics levels, which will further provide new methods and outlooks for in-depth investigation of the behavior and mechanisms along with explaining their relationship with the organism of individual cells in a cluster of cells.

Indeed, the single-cell multi-genomics sequencing technique will help us to know more about the normal and diseased skin, and will also serve as a beneficial strategy for diagnosing and treating skin disorders.

Source: Zou D, Qi J, Wu W, et al. Applications of single-cell sequencing in dermatology. Med Sci Monit. 2021;27:e931862.