Opportunities for Single‐Cell Sequencing in Synthetic Biology

Single‐cell sequencing describes the ability to extract information from a single cell among a heterogeneous mix of cell types by sequencing its DNA or RNA. The development of this technology created tremendous excitement in biology. Akin to gaining higher resolution on a microscope, single‐cell sequencing opened our eyes towards previously unknown cellular heterogeneity and the underlying molecular mechanisms. This technology, however, could in principle be applied to any non‐living particle capable of carrying nucleotides. This article proposes the application of single‐cell sequencing in synthetic biology in order to analyze large numbers of artificially‐generated or re‐engineered synthetic cells simultaneously. The high‐throughput nature of this technology provides the opportunity to test multiple hypotheses in parallel and thus accelerate the pace of discovery. Synthetic biology serves as a particularly exciting example of many overlooked non‐canonical applications of single‐cell sequencing.