CEGS: Microscale Life Sciences Center

描述（由申请人提供）：越来越明显的是，理解、预测和诊断疾病状态被原位细胞群固有的异质性所混淆。细胞命运的这种变化可能是戏剧性的，例如，一个细胞存活而邻近的细胞死亡。因此，为了了解疾病状态的基本途径，有必要在单个细胞水平上将疾病过程中预先存在的细胞状态与细胞命运联系起来。华盛顿大学的微尺度生命科学中心（MLSC）致力于解决这一问题，通过开发尖端的微尺度技术进行高通量基因组水平和多参数单细胞分析，并将该技术应用于生物学和健康的基本问题。我们的愿景是直接在单个细胞水平上解决疾病状态的途径，在不断增加的复杂性水平上逐步移动到对疾病的体内理解。我们建议将MLSC技术创新应用于关注细胞增殖和细胞死亡之间平衡的问题。美国的三大杀手，癌症、心脏病和中风，都与细胞决策过程中的不平衡有关。由于细胞在生死决定中的内在异质性，这个基本的细胞生物学问题是一个例子，其中单个细胞的分析对于发展基因组学、细胞功能和疾病之间的联系是必不可少的。要研究的特定系统是小鼠巨噬细胞模型中的促炎细胞死亡（焦亡）和肿瘤

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that understanding, predicting, and diagnosing disease states is confounded by the inherent heterogeneity of in situ cell populations. This variation in cell fate can be dramatic, for instance, one cell living while an adjacent cell dies. Thus, in order to understand fundamental pathways involved in disease states, it is necessary to link preexisting cell state to cell fate in the disease process at the individual cell level. The Microscale Life Sciences Center (MLSC) at the University of Washington is focused on solving this problem, by developing cutting-edge microscale technology for high throughput genomic-level and multi-parameter single-cell analysis, and applying that technology to fundamental problems of biology and health. Our vision is to address pathways to disease states directly at the individual cell level, at increasing levels of complexity that progressively move to an in vivo understanding of disease. We propose to apply MLSC technological innovations to questions that focus on the balance between cell proliferation and cell death. The top three killers in the US, cancer, heart disease and stroke, all involve an imbalance in this cellular decision-making process. Because of intrinsic cellular heterogeneity in the live/die decision, this fundamental cellular biology problem is an example of one for which analysis of individual cells is essential for developing the link between genomics, cell function, and disease. The specific systems to be studied are proinflammatory cell death (pyroptosis) in a mouse macrophage model, and neoplastic progression in the Barrett's Esophagus (BE) precancerous model. In each case, diagnostic signatures for specific cell states will be determined by measuring both physiological (cell cycle, ploidy, respiration rate, membrane potential) and genomic (gene expression profiles by single-cell proteomics, qRT-PCR and transcriptomics; LOH by LATE-PCR) parameters. These will then be correlated with cell fate via the same sets of measurements after a challenge is administered, for instance, a cell death stimulus for pyroptosis or a predisposing risk factor challenge (acid reflux) for BE. Ultimately, time series will be taken to map out the pathways that underlie the live/die decision. Finally, this information will be used as a platform to define cell-cell interactions at the single-cell level, to move information on disease pathways towards greater in vivo relevance. New technology will be developed and integrated into the existing MLSC Living Cell Analysis cassette system to support these ambitious biological goals including 1) automated systems for cell placement, off-chip device interconnects, and high throughput data analysis with user friendly interfaces; 2) new optical and electronic sensors based on a new detection platform, new dyes and nanowires; and 3) new micromodules for single-cell qRT-PCR, LATE-PCR for LOH including single-cell pyrosequencing, on-chip single-cell proteomics, and single-cell transcriptomics using barcoded nanobeads.