Lécuyer Eric, Tomancak Pavel
Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2008 Dec;18(6):506-12. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2008.08.003. Epub 2008 Sep 20.
Methods to globally survey gene expression provide valuable insights into gene function during development. In particular, comprehensive in situ hybridization studies have demonstrated that gene expression patterns are extraordinarily diverse and new imaging techniques have been introduced to capture these patterns with higher resolution at the tissue, cellular, and subcellular levels. The analysis of massive image databases can be greatly facilitated by computer vision techniques once annotated image sets reach the crucial mass sufficient to train the computer in pattern recognition. Ultimately, genome-wide atlases of gene expression during development will record gene activity in living animals with at least cellular resolution and in the context of morphogenetic events. These emerging datasets will lead to great advances in the field of comparative genomics and revolutionize our ability to decipher and model developmental processes for a variety of organisms.
全面调查基因表达的方法为了解发育过程中的基因功能提供了有价值的见解。特别是，全面的原位杂交研究表明基因表达模式极其多样，并且已经引入了新的成像技术以在组织、细胞和亚细胞水平上以更高分辨率捕获这些模式。一旦注释图像集达到足以训练计算机进行模式识别的关键数量，计算机视觉技术就能极大地促进对海量图像数据库的分析。最终，发育过程中基因表达的全基因组图谱将记录活体动物中至少具有细胞分辨率且在形态发生事件背景下的基因活性。这些新兴数据集将推动比较基因组学领域取得巨大进展，并彻底改变我们解读和模拟各种生物体发育过程的能力。
