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OMICS Tech Tips: Gene Expression Analysis Reshapes Biomedical Research Richard A. Stein, M.D., Ph.D. Recent strides in biotechnology have pro- vided a wealth of information about the ge- nomes of many species, some of which were challenging or impossible to interrogate with approaches that were dominating the field merely a few years ago. As a result, unprecedented opportunities became available, including the possibility to perform genome-wide gene expression profil- ing and comparative genomic analyses, and to study changes that occur in specific states, such as during development, disease, or in re- sponse to environmental agents or therapeu- tic compounds. Historically, many biological questions were addressed by relying on datasets that originated from large-scale gene expression studies. However, one of the shortcomings of this strategy is that gene expression het- erogeneity, which is present even among genetically identical cells that are grown in the same culture or are found at the same developmental point, is obscured, and infor- mation about individual cells and cell-to-cell variability will only be captured by perform- ing single-cell level analyses. "The very next frontier for genomics, as a field, is single-cell genomics, and the ex- pression profiling of single cells will likely be the next step," says Jian-Bing Fan, Ph.D., se- nior director of scientific research at Illumina (www.illumina.com). See Tech Tips: Gene Expression on page 36 A B Research has shown that alcohol induces aberrant changes in gene expression and in the epigenome of embryos. One result is the misregulation of proteins such as serotransferrin, which was found in greater amounts in mouse embryos exposed to alcohol. The increase (A) was confirmed by immunolocalization of serotransferrin to the branchial arches (BA1) and somites, particularly in the heart (boxed area), as compared to control (B). Misregulated proteins are known to be involved in nervous system development and function. International Journal of Proteomics, Hindawi Publishing, 2012, doi:10.1155/2012/867141 34 | October 1, 2012 | genengnews.com | Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News