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Transcriptomic blueprints

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 18, page 639 (2017)Cite this article

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potential of this approach to map gene regulatory programmes in great detail

Cao et al. present a newly developed technique termed single-cell combinatorial indexing RNA sequencing (sci-RNA-seq), which they use to obtain 42,035 transcriptome profiles of single cells from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans at the L2 larval stage. The team defined consensus expression profiles for 27 cell types from the transcriptomic data. In addition to the mapping of 18 non-neuronal cell types, the authors identified many neuronal cell types, including some known to correspond to merely one or two cells in the larval worm, highlighting the potential of this approach to map gene regulatory programmes in great detail. Integration of the sci-RNA-seq profiles with whole-animal chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP–seq) data enabled the team to elucidate cell type-specific effects of individual transcription factors.

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References

  1. Cao, J. et al. Comprehensive single-cell transcriptional profiling of a multicellular organism. Science 357, 661–667 (2017)10.1126/science.aam8940

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  2. Karaiskos, N. et al. The Drosophila embryo at single-cell transcriptome resolution. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aan3235 (2017)

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  1. Linda Koch
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Koch, L. Transcriptomic blueprints. Nat Rev Genet 18, 639 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg.2017.77

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