Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Genome Res. 2012 Jul;22(7):1282-94. doi: 10.1101/gr.131920.111. Epub 2012 Apr 16.
How cells adopt different expression patterns is a fundamental question of developmental biology. We quantitatively measured reporter expression of 127 genes, primarily transcription factors, in every cell and with high temporal resolution in C. elegans embryos. Embryonic cells are highly distinct in their gene expression; expression of the 127 genes studied here can distinguish nearly all pairs of cells, even between cells of the same tissue type. We observed recurrent lineage-regulated expression patterns for many genes in diverse contexts. These patterns are regulated in part by the TCF-LEF transcription factor POP-1. Other genes' reporters exhibited patterns correlated with tissue, position, and left-right asymmetry. Sequential patterns both within tissues and series of sublineages suggest regulatory pathways. Expression patterns often differ between embryonic and larval stages for the same genes, emphasizing the importance of profiling expression in different stages. This work greatly expands the number of genes in each of these categories and provides the first large-scale, digitally based, cellular resolution compendium of gene expression dynamics in live animals. The resulting data sets will be a useful resource for future research.
细胞如何采用不同的表达模式是发育生物学的一个基本问题。我们在秀丽隐杆线虫胚胎中以高时间分辨率定量测量了 127 个主要是转录因子的基因在每个细胞中的报告基因表达。胚胎细胞在其基因表达上高度不同；在这里研究的 127 个基因的表达可以区分几乎所有的细胞对，即使是同一组织类型的细胞之间也是如此。我们观察到许多基因在不同的背景下出现了反复的谱系调控表达模式。这些模式部分受 TCF-LEF 转录因子 POP-1 的调控。其他基因的报告基因表现出与组织、位置和左右不对称性相关的模式。组织内和亚谱系系列中的顺序模式表明存在调控途径。对于相同的基因，其在胚胎和幼虫阶段的表达模式往往不同，这强调了在不同阶段对表达进行分析的重要性。这项工作大大增加了每个类别中的基因数量，并提供了第一个大规模的、基于数字的、活生物体细胞分辨率的基因表达动态综合数据集。由此产生的数据集将成为未来研究的有用资源。
