Single-cell gene expression analysis: implications for neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Technical and experimental advances in microaspiration techniques, RNA amplification, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), and cDNA microarray analysis have led to an increase in the number of studies of single-cell gene expression. In particular, the central nervous system (CNS) is an ideal structure to apply single-cell gene expression paradigms. Unlike an organ that is composed of one principal cell type, the brain contains a constellation of neuronal and noneuronal populations of cells. A goal is to sample gene expression from similar cell types within a defined region without potential contamination by expression profiles of adjacent neuronal subpopulations and noneuronal cells. The unprecedented resolution afforded by single-cell RNA analysis in combination with cDNA microarrays and qPCR-based analyses allows for relative gene expression level comparisons across cell types under different experimental conditions and disease states. The ability to analyze single cells is an important distinction from global and regional assessments of mRNA expression and can be applied to optimally prepared tissues from animal models as well as postmortem human brain tissues. This focused review illustrates the potential power of single-cell gene expression studies within the CNS in relation to neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and schizophrenia, respectively.
Ginsberg
Stephen D
SD
Center for Dementia Research, Nathan Kline Institute, New York University School of Medicine, Orangeburg, New York 10962, USA. ginsberg@nki.rfmh.org
Elarova
Irina
I
Ruben
Marc
M
Tan
Fengzhu
F
Counts
Scott E
SE
Eberwine
James H
JH
Trojanowski
John Q
JQ
Hemby
Scott E
SE
Mufson
Elliott J
EJ
Che
Shaoli
S
D002468:Cell Physiological Phenomena; D015870:Gene Expression; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006801:Humans; D019636:Neurodegenerative Diseases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D009474:Neurons / Q000473:pathology; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D016548:Prosencephalon / Q000473:pathology; D011954:Receptors, Dopamine / Q000235:genetics; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000235:genetics*
D011954:Receptors, Dopamine