Global and targeted approaches to single-cell transcriptome characterization

Analysing transcriptomes of cell populations is a standard molecular biology approach to understand how cells function. Recent methodological development has allowed performing similar experiments on single cells. This has opened up the possibility to examine samples with limited cell number, such as cells of the early embryo, and to obtain an understanding of heterogeneity within populations such as blood cell types or neurons. There are two major approaches for single-cell transcriptome analysis: quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) on a limited number of genes of interest, or more global approaches targeting entire transcriptomes using RNA sequencing. RT-qPCR is sensitive, fast and arguably more straightforward, while whole-transcriptome approaches offer an unbiased perspective on a cell’s expression status.