Department of Pathology, Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, Box 425, 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden.
Brief Funct Genomics. 2013 Mar;12(2):81-9. doi: 10.1093/bfgp/elt001. Epub 2013 Feb 7.
Cells are the basic unit of life and they have remarkable abilities to respond individually as well as in concert to internal and external stimuli in a specific manner. Studying complex tissues and whole organs requires understanding of cell heterogeneity and responses to stimuli at the single-cell level. In this review, we discuss the potential of single-cell gene expression profiling, focusing on data analysis and biological interpretation. We exemplify several aspects of the added value of single-cell analysis by comparing the same experimental data at both single-cell and cell population level. Data normalization and handling of missing data are two important steps in data analysis that are performed differently at single-cell level compared with cell population level. Furthermore, we discuss how single-cell gene expression data can be viewed and how subpopulations of cells can be identified and characterized.
细胞是生命的基本单位，它们具有非凡的能力，能够以特定的方式单独或协同响应内部和外部刺激。研究复杂的组织和整个器官需要了解细胞异质性和对单细胞水平刺激的反应。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了单细胞基因表达谱分析的潜力，重点是数据分析和生物学解释。我们通过比较单细胞和细胞群体水平的相同实验数据来说明单细胞分析的附加值的几个方面。数据归一化和缺失数据处理是数据分析中的两个重要步骤，在单细胞水平与细胞群体水平的处理方式不同。此外，我们还讨论了如何看待单细胞基因表达数据，以及如何识别和描述细胞亚群。
