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Single‐cell technologies are revolutionizing the approach to rare cells
Author(s) -
Proserpio Valentina,
Lönnberg Tapio
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
immunology and cell biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.999
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1440-1711
pISSN - 0818-9641
DOI - 10.1038/icb.2015.106
Subject(s) - mass cytometry , compartment (ship) , biology , haematopoiesis , cell , rna , single cell analysis , microbiology and biotechnology , immune system , computational biology , bone marrow , hematopoietic cell , dna , immunology , stem cell , genetics , gene , phenotype , geology , oceanography
In the last lustrum single‐cell techniques such as single‐cell quantitative PCR, RNA and DNA sequencing, and the state‐of‐the‐art cytometry by time of flight (CyTOF) mass cytometer have allowed a detailed analysis of the sub‐composition of different organs from the bone marrow hematopoietic compartment to the brain. These fine‐grained analyses have highlighted the great heterogeneity within each cell compartment revealing previously unknown subpopulations of cells. In this review, we analyze how this fast technological evolution has improved our understanding of the biological processes with a particular focus on rare cells of the immune system.