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Understanding the Transcriptome in a Whole Tissue – a Single Cell Perspective

Tuesday, 25 February 2014 at 14:45

Add to Calendar ▼2014-02-25 14:45:002014-02-25 15:45:00Europe/LondonUnderstanding the Transcriptome in a Whole Tissue – a Single Cell Perspective Next Generation Sequencing: Research to Clinic in San Diego, California, USASan Diego, California, USASELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Biological variability between cells has been attributed to the intrinsic stochastic nature of the molecular interactions associated with various cellular processes. This variability has also been referred to as “noise”. The relationship, if any between the variability of gene expression, within individual cells in a tissue, to the functional phenotype of that tissue, remains to be understood.  We have been working with the vertebrate ocular lens whose functional phenotype is transparency that allows transmission of light into the eye, which makes vision possible. The ocular lens is a highly organized tissue composed of an epithelium and a large number of differentiated fiber cells   that accumulate a large amount of crystallins which generate transparency. We have now assessed the “noise” of the gene expression that contributes to the phenotype of the fiber cells and from this determination assessed the molecular heterogeneity in the ocular lens. We find that transcription patterns of crystallins (proteins physically associated with transparency) are different from non-crystallins. We will introduce this paradigm for the study of transcriptional basis of the cellular heterogeneity within a whole tissue and discuss data obtained employing microfluidic RT-qPCR analysis of gene expression in individual fiber cells of the normal mouse lens.