Gene Activity Visualized Via Thousands of Single Cells

Biologists from the University of Zurich have recently developed a method that works to visualize the activity of genes in single cells. This efficient method works through the study of a thousand genes in a parallel setting via ten thousand single human cells. The applications lie in fields of basic research and medical diagnostics. According to the study this new research shows that the activity of genes and social organization of the resulting transcript molecules work between single cells.

When a cell activates a gene, they produce gene specific transcript molecules that make the function of the gene readily available to the cell. The measurement of gene activity plays a routine function in medical diagnostics-especially those that involve cancer medication.

Yet these technologies cannot determine the amount of transcript molecules carried in one thousand genes in ten thousand single cells nor the spatial organization of transcript molecules within a single cell.

Lead study author of the University of Zurich supervision Professor Lucas Pelkmans worked to find a fully automated procedure that allows for a parallel measurement of the amount and spatial organization for single transcript molecules in ten thousands single cells.

More information regarding the analysis can be see, via a press release: "The method developed by Pelkmans' PhD students Nico Battich and Thomas Stoeger is based upon the combination of robots, an automated fluorescence microscope and a supercomputer. "When genes become active, specific transcript molecules are produced. We can stain them with the help of a robot", explains Stoeger. Subsequently, fluorescence microscope images of brightly glowing transcript molecules are generated. Those images were analyzed with the supercomputer Brutus, of the ETH Zurich. With this method, one thousand human genes can be studied in ten thousand single cells. According to Pelkmans, the advantages of this method are the high number of single cells and the possibility to study, for the first time, the spatial organization of the transcript molecules of many genes.

"The analysis of the new data shows that individual cells distinguish themselves in the activity of their genes. While the scientists had been suspecting a high variability in the amount of transcript molecules, they were surprised to discover a strong variability in the spatial organization of transcript molecules within single cells and between multiple single cells. The transcript molecules adapted distinctive patterns."

More information regarding the study can be found via the journal Nature Methods.