What's Luck Got to Do with It: Single Cells, Multiple Fates, and Biological Nondeterminism.
What's Luck Got to Do with It: Single Cells, Multiple Fates, and Biological Nondeterminism.
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DOI：
10.1016/j.molcel.2016.05.023
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发表时间：
2016-06-02
期刊：
影响因子：
16
通讯作者：
Raj A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Symmons O;Raj A
单细胞生物学领域已经从一开始的哲学离题变成了定量生物学家的游乐场，成为生物医学研究的一个主要领域。在过去的几年里，我们见证了新技术的爆炸式发展，使我们能够将更多的现代分子生物学工具应用于单细胞。然而，概念方面的进展相对缓慢。在这里，我们提供了一个框架，用于对单个细胞之间差异的起源和这些差异的后果进行分类。我们讨论了“随机”差异的概念是如何依赖于上下文的，并提出严格的输入和输出的定义可能会带来清晰的讨论。我们还对概率行为可能影响细胞功能的方式进行了分类，突出了指向该领域令人兴奋的未来方向的研究。
The field of single cell biology has morphed from a philosophical digression at its inception to a playground for quantitative biologists, to a major area of biomedical research. The last several years have witnessed an explosion of new technologies, allowing us to apply ever more of the modern molecular biology toolkit to single cells. Conceptual progress, however, has been comparatively slow. Here, we provide a framework for classifying both the origins of the differences between individual cells and the consequences of those differences. We discuss how the concept of “random” differences is context dependent, and propose that rigorous definitions of inputs and outputs may bring clarity to the discussion. We also categorize ways in which probabilistic behavior may influence cellular function, highlighting studies that point to exciting future directions in the field.