Tag Archives: heterogeneity

The importance of diversity and cellular specialization is clear for many reasons, from population-level diversification, to improved resiliency to unforeseen stresses, to unique functions within...

Recent advances in single-cell RNA sequencing are producing exciting new insights into cell diversity within different tissues and cancers. Listen in to hear Dr Gonçalo Castelo-Branco and Dr Amit Zeisel, of the the Department of Medical Biochemistry...

RNA microarrays and RNA-seq are now standard technologies to study the transcriptional activity of cells. Most studies focus on tracking transcriptional changes caused by specific experimental conditions. Information referring to genes up- and...

Analysing transcriptomes of cell populations is a standard molecular biology approach to understand how cells function. Recent methodological development has allowed performing similar experiments on single cells. This has opened up the possibility to examine samples with limited cell number, ...

Blood glucose levels are tightly controlled by the coordinated actions of hormone-producing endocrine cells that reside in pancreatic islets. Islet cell malfunction underlies diabetes development and progression. Due to the cellular heterogeneity within islets, it has been challenging to uncover ...

Malignant tumors of the central nervous system (CNS) cause substantial morbidity and mortality, yet efforts to optimize chemo- and radiotherapy have largely failed to improve dismal prognoses. Over the past decade, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has emerged as a powerful tool ...

Single-cell RNA-Sequencing (scRNA-Seq) is a fast-evolving technology that enables the understanding of biological processes at an unprecedentedly high resolution. However, well-suited bioinformatics tools to analyze the data generated from this new technology are still lacking. Here researchers from the University ...

The ability to quantify cellular heterogeneity is a major advantage of single-cell technologies. However, statistical methods often treat cellular heterogeneity as a nuisance. Researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the University of Wisconsin, Madison present a novel method to ...

The individual sample heterogeneity is one of the biggest obstacles in biomarker identification for complex diseases such as cancers. Current statistical models to identify differentially expressed genes between disease and control groups often overlook the substantial human sample heterogeneity. Meanwhile, ...

Rare cell subtypes can profoundly impact the course of human health and disease, yet their presence within a sample is often missed with bulk molecular analysis. Single-cell analysis tools such as FACS, FISH-FC and single-cell barcode-based sequencing can investigate cellular ...