Lu Wen, Fuchou Tang
Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center, College of Life Sciences, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Cell Proliferation and Differentiation, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Yi Chuan. 2014 Nov;36(11):1069-76. doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1005.2014.1069.
Cell heterogeneity is a general feature of biological tissues. Standard transcriptome analysis approaches require tens of thousands of cells to provide an average view of gene expression and ignore the information of gene expression heterogeneity. The single-cell RNA-Seq technologies profile gene expression at the single-cell level and serve as powerful tools to identify distinct phenotypic cell types within a heterogeneous population. The single-cell RNA-Seq technologies have been developed rapidly in recent years. The methodological progress includes a variety of cDNA amplification methods, the quantitative analysis of the sensitivity and noise of the technologies, and the development of the low-coverage high-throughput single-cell RNA-Seq and the in situ RNA-Seq technologies. Furthermore, the scope of application is extended from early embryonic development to tissue and organ development, immunology and oncology. In this review, we discuss recent progress in methodology and applications of the single-cell RNA-Seq technologies.
细胞异质性是生物组织的一个普遍特征。标准转录组分析方法需要数万个细胞才能提供基因表达的平均视图，并忽略基因表达异质性的信息。单细胞RNA测序技术在单细胞水平上描绘基因表达，是识别异质群体中不同表型细胞类型的有力工具。近年来，单细胞RNA测序技术发展迅速。方法学上的进展包括多种cDNA扩增方法、技术灵敏度和噪声的定量分析，以及低覆盖高通量单细胞RNA测序和原位RNA测序技术的发展。此外，其应用范围从早期胚胎发育扩展到组织和器官发育、免疫学和肿瘤学。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了单细胞RNA测序技术在方法学和应用方面的最新进展。
