BioLegend, a world-class antibody provider, announced today a new partnership with VIB, a leading life science research institute in Flanders (Belgium), to evaluate and implement the TotalSeqTM antibodies for next-generation multi-omics by the combining single cell transcriptomics with single cell proteomics profiling.

Early this year, an exclusive license agreement was announced between BioLegend and the New York Genome Center to commercialize CITE-seq under BioLegend’s brand name TotalSeqTM. The first product in the brand portfolio, TotalSeqTMA, was the first to provide a commercially available source for CITE-seq antibodies to enable simultaneous surface protein profiling and RNA-seq at the single cell level. BioLegend’s more recent collaboration with 10x Genomics further extends the TotalSeqTM portfolio with TotalSeqTMB and TotalSeqTMC products, which provide more complete reagent kits that are fully compatible with 10x Genomics' ChromiumTM Solutions and new Feature Barcoding technology, recently launched at the ASHG 68th Annual Meeting in San Diego. 

Today, BioLegend and VIB are proud to announce their collaboration on the TotalSeqTM antibody libraries. “BioLegend is thrilled to be working with VIB to provide our integrated TotalSeqTM Proteogenomics solutions as a standardized tool for researchers across labs and disciplines throughout the VIB network,” stated Gene Lay, CEO at BioLegend.

The VIB research institute is at the forefront of the single cell field characterizing pathologies at the highest resolution. Multiple VIB groups will highly benefit from this extremely powerful technology. Martin Guilliams and Charlotte Scott, VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research comment that, “One of the main rate-limiting steps of our research, was screening for surface proteins. BioLegend proposes a TotalSeqTM solution that permits to test the expression of hundreds of surface proteins simultaneously in parallel with single-cell RNA-Sequencing. These TotalSeqTM antibodies will now be used in our efforts to map the different myeloid cells for the Human Cell Atlas project.” The TotalSeqTM antibodies will also have a significant impact in the cancer field, states Diether Lambrechts, director of the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology who “plans to apply CITE-seq to examine individual tumor cells and the cells that infiltrate the tumor such as T-cells and other immune cells in tumor biopsies, to deeply characterize tumors and their microenvironment for the development of new immunotherapeutic approaches.” Jo Van Ginderachter, VIB Center for Inflammation Research at VUB, adds that in the brain research field “TotalSeqTM antibodies will generate unprecedented insight in the molecular make-up of single cells present within the steady-state and diseased brain, allowing the identification and characterization of functionally important cell types and activation states.” Bart Lambrecht, director of VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research, is “very excited to be able to push the boundaries of flow cytometry panel design to tackle fundamental problems in asthma in an unbiased manner using TotalSeqTM antibodies.” Finally, Yvan Saeys and Niels Vandamme, VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research, add to this that "The new TotalSeqTM antibodies provide also novel opportunities for research in computational biology, paving the way towards single-cell multi-omics data integration."

Boosting the VIB research in the single cell field is also one of the key goals of the newly established Single Cell Accelerator (SCA) program at the institute. This program aims to expand VIB’s expertise in single cell research by optimizing, validating and developing novel and recently commercialized platforms within VIB’s Technology Innovation Lab. Over the coming months, VIB will work towards setting up established CITE-seq protocols for this technology on a broad range of different sample types. “We believe that single cell protein profiling can revolutionize the single cell field and we want to boost the uptake of this technology at VIB. For this, we are pleased to be closely collaborating with BioLegend on their TotalSeqTM antibody libraries”, states Silvie Van den Hoecke, Life Science Technology Specialist at VIB.

About VIB
VIB is a research institute based in Flanders, Belgium. With more than 1470 scientists from over 60 countries, the institute performs basic research into the molecular foundations of life. Through the close partnership between VIB and five Flemish universities – Ghent University, KU Leuven, University of Antwerp, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Hasselt University, 75 research groups unite in a single institute to push the boundaries of life sciences. The embedded Tech Watch program supports VIB scientist by actively implementing novel technologies throughout the institute. Over the years, Tech Watch has gathered in-depth information about disruptive technologies that drives the institute. Tech Watch recently established the Technology Innovation lab for rapid implementation of emerging platforms and the development of new technology platforms.

About BioLegend
BioLegend develops and manufactures world-class, cutting-edge antibodies and reagents at an outstanding value to customers for biomedical research. The broad product portfolio includes flow cytometry, cell biology, and functional reagents for research in immunology, cancer research, stem cells, neuroscience and more. The aggressive product development program is accomplished through technology licensing, collaborations, and internal research. BioLegend offers a wide range of custom services, including assay development, sample testing, and conjugation. BioLegend headquarters in San Diego, CA operates under an ISO 13485:2003 certified quality management system. For more information on BioLegend, visit: https://www.biolegend.com/en-us/totalseq