Single-Cell Tech Primer

摘要

Microfluidics is the hot technique in the single-cell field (see main text). However, it's just one of the methods that are enabling researchers to delve into individual cells. 1. Gene Expression Many modern gene-expression studies apply the mingled contents of thousands of cells to devices called microarrays that look like glass slides or microchips. But with microfluidic chips, researchers can make the same measurements on one cell. Take the gene-expression chips from California-based Flu-idigm, a company co-founded by Stephen Quake of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The devices isolate samples from individual cells and mix them with the chemicals necessary for quantitative polymerase chain reaction, a technique that determines gene activity by measuring how much messenger RNA a gene makes.