Assessing Chromosomal Aberrations from Limiting Input of Cells Using Affymetrix Copy Number and SNP Arrays

摘要

Measurements generated from traditional RNA/DNA profiling methods typically represent an amalgam of signals compiled from tens to thousands or even millions of cells within a multi-cellular population. These approaches require a bulk amount of test material and assume that there is minimal heterogeneity among seemingly similar cells in order to draw a global conclusion. In contrast, the ability to measure signal from a single cell allows unprecedented ability to resolve genomic differences in complex mixture of individual cells, monitor circulating/rare cells often in a non-invasive manner, and allow early access to the genome during development in the form of cells taken from pre-implantation embryos.