Liu Xiao, Long Fuhui, Peng Hanchuan, Aerni Sarah J, Jiang Min, Sánchez-Blanco Adolfo, Murray John I, Preston Elicia, Mericle Barbara, Batzoglou Serafim, Myers Eugene W, Kim Stuart K
Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Cell. 2009 Oct 30;139(3):623-33. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.08.044.
The C. elegans cell lineage provides a unique opportunity to look at how cell lineage affects patterns of gene expression. We developed an automatic cell lineage analyzer that converts high-resolution images of worms into a data table showing fluorescence expression with single-cell resolution. We generated expression profiles of 93 genes in 363 specific cells from L1 stage larvae and found that cells with identical fates can be formed by different gene regulatory pathways. Molecular signatures identified repeating cell fate modules within the cell lineage and enabled the generation of a molecular differentiation map that reveals points in the cell lineage when developmental fates of daughter cells begin to diverge. These results demonstrate insights that become possible using computational approaches to analyze quantitative expression from many genes in parallel using a digital gene expression atlas.
秀丽隐杆线虫的细胞谱系为研究细胞谱系如何影响基因表达模式提供了独特的机会。我们开发了一种自动细胞谱系分析仪，它能将线虫的高分辨率图像转换为一个数据表，以单细胞分辨率显示荧光表达情况。我们生成了L1期幼虫363个特定细胞中93个基因的表达谱，发现具有相同命运的细胞可以由不同的基因调控途径形成。分子特征鉴定出细胞谱系中重复的细胞命运模块，并生成了一个分子分化图谱，该图谱揭示了子细胞发育命运开始分化时细胞谱系中的关键点。这些结果表明，使用计算方法通过数字基因表达图谱并行分析多个基因的定量表达能够获得一些见解。
