Gene expression profiling in single cells from the pancreatic islets of Langerhans reveals lognormal distribution of mRNA levels
Gene expression profiling in single cells from the pancreatic islets of Langerhans reveals lognormal distribution of mRNA levels
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DOI：
10.1101/gr.3820805
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发表时间：
2005-10-01
期刊：
影响因子：
7
通讯作者：
Kubista, M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bengtsson, M;Ståhlberg, A;Kubista, M
单个细胞中的转录机制由相对较小的分子控制，这可能导致基因活动的随机行为。由于目前收集和记录方法的技术限制，大多数基因表达测量是在细胞群体中进行的，因此反映了平均mRNA水平。不同细胞之间转录水平的差异仍然不确定，尽管它可能对细胞活动产生深远的影响。在这里，我们测量了五个基因AA、Ins1、Ins2、Abcc8和Kcnj11在小鼠胰岛单个细胞中的基因表达水平。虽然Ins1和1ns2的表达显示出很强的细胞间相关性，但其他基因的情况并非如此。我们进一步发现，不同基因的转录水平呈对数正态分布。因此，表达水平的几何平均值比对细胞群体测量的算术平均值提供了对典型细胞的基因活性的更好的估计。
The transcriptional machinery in individual cells is controlled by a relatively small [lumber of molecules, Which may result in stochastic behavior in gene activity. Because of technical limitations in current collection and recording methods, most gene expression measurements are carried out on Populations of cells and therefore reflect average mRNA levels. The variability of the transcript levels between different cells remains undefined, although it may have profound effects on cellular activities. Here we have measured gene expression levels of the five genes AA, Ins1, Ins2, Abcc8, and Kcnj11 in individual cells from mouse pancreatic islets. Whereas Ins1 and 1ns2 expression show a strong cell-cell correlation, this is not the case for the other genes. We further found that the transcript levels of the different genes are lognormally distributed. Hence, the geometric mean of expression levels provides a better estimate of gene activity of the typical cell than does the arithmetic mean measured on a cell population.