Open AccessDeciphering transcriptional and functional heterogeneity in hematopoiesis with single-cell genomics
Author(s) -
Jorge D. Martin-Rufino,
Vijay G. Sankaran
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
current opinion in hematology/current opinion in hematology, with evaluated medline
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.295
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1080-8213
pISSN - 1065-6251
DOI - 10.1097/moh.0000000000000657
Subject(s) - biology , cell fate determination , computational biology , haematopoiesis , stem cell , functional genomics , single cell analysis , transcriptome , hematopoietic stem cell , progenitor cell , gene expression profiling , cell , transcription factor , genetics , gene , genomics , gene expression , genome
Single-cell genomic approaches have uncovered cell fate biases and heterogeneity within hematopoietic subpopulations. However, standard single-cell transcriptomics suffers from high sampling noise, which particularly skews the distribution of lowly expressed genes, such as transcription factors (TFs). This might preclude the identification of rare transcripts that define cell identity and demarcate cell fate biases. Moreover, these studies need to go hand in hand with relevant functional assays to ensure that observed gene expression changes represent biologically meaningful alterations.