Global Analysis of Cell Type-Specific Gene Expression

The tissues and organs of multicellular eukaryotes are frequently observed to comprise complex three-dimensional interspersions of different cell types. It is a reasonable assumption that different global patterns of gene expression are found within these different cell types. This review outlines general experimental strategies designed to characterize these global gene expression patterns, based on a combination of methods of transgenic fluorescent protein (FP) expression and targeting, of flow cytometry and sorting and of high-throughput gene expression analysis.