title: Analysis of cell fate from single-cell gene expression profiles in C. elegans.
abstract: The C. elegans cell lineage provides a unique opportunity to look at how cell lineage affects patterns of gene expression. We developed an automatic cell lineage analyzer that converts high-resolution images of worms into a data table showing fluorescence expression with single-cell resolution. We generated expression profiles of 93 genes in 363 specific cells from L1 stage larvae and found that cells with identical fates can be formed by different gene regulatory pathways. Molecular signatures identified repeating cell fate modules within the cell lineage and enabled the generation of a molecular differentiation map that reveals points in the cell lineage when developmental fates of daughter cells begin to diverge. These results demonstrate insights that become possible using computational approaches to analyze quantitative expression from many genes in parallel using a digital gene expression atlas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Fuhui
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Long
authors.forename: Hanchuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Aerni
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Adolfo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Blanco
authors.forename: John I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.forename: Elicia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Preston
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mericle
authors.forename: Serafim
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Batzoglou
authors.forename: Eugene W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Myers
authors.forename: Stuart K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D019070:Cell Lineage; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins