美国宾夕法尼亚大学Arjun Raj团队利用MemorySeq揭示了与不同细胞行为相关的可遗传性单细胞基因表达程序。2020年7月30日，《细胞》在线发表了这一成果。

Title: Memory Sequencing Reveals Heritable Single-Cell Gene Expression Programs Associated with Distinct Cellular Behaviors

Author: Sydney M. Shaffer, Benjamin L. Emert, Raúl A. Reyes Hueros, Christopher Cote, Guillaume Harmange, Dylan L. Schaff, Ann E. Sizemore, Rohit Gupte, Eduardo Torre, Abhyudai Singh, Danielle S. Bassett, Arjun Raj

Issue&Volume: 2020-07-30

Abstract: Non-genetic factors can cause individual cells to fluctuate substantially in geneexpression levels over time. It remains unclear whether these fluctuations can persistfor much longer than the time of one cell division. Current methods for measuringgene expression in single cells mostly rely on single time point measurements, makingthe duration of gene expression fluctuations or cellular memory difficult to measure.Here, we combined Luria and Delbrück’s fluctuation analysis with population-basedRNA sequencing (MemorySeq) for identifying genes transcriptome-wide whose fluctuationspersist for several divisions. MemorySeq revealed multiple gene modules that expressedtogether in rare cells within otherwise homogeneous clonal populations. These rarecell subpopulations were associated with biologically distinct behaviors like proliferationin the face of anti-cancer therapeutics. The identification of non-genetic, multigenerationalfluctuations can reveal new forms of biological memory in single cells and suggeststhat non-genetic heritability of cellular state may be a quantitative property.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.07.003

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30868-0