The technology and biology of single-cell RNA sequencing

Mol Cell. 2015 May 21;58(4):610-20. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2015.04.005.

Abstract

The differences between individual cells can have profound functional consequences, in both unicellular and multicellular organisms. Recently developed single-cell mRNA-sequencing methods enable unbiased, high-throughput, and high-resolution transcriptomic analysis of individual cells. This provides an additional dimension to transcriptomic information relative to traditional methods that profile bulk populations of cells. Already, single-cell RNA-sequencing methods have revealed new biology in terms of the composition of tissues, the dynamics of transcription, and the regulatory relationships between genes. Rapid technological developments at the level of cell capture, phenotyping, molecular biology, and bioinformatics promise an exciting future with numerous biological and medical applications.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Alternative Splicing
  • Animals
  • Cell Lineage / genetics
  • Gene Expression Profiling / methods*
  • Gene Regulatory Networks*
  • Genetic Variation
  • Humans
  • Models, Genetic
  • Sequence Analysis, RNA / methods*
  • Single-Cell Analysis / methods*