4 December 2015
Harinder Singh
Centre for Systems Immunology
Cincinatti Childrens's Hospital Medical Centre
Single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) is becoming a widely utilized approach in probing diverse and complex developmental compartments in an unbiased manner. Using suitable computational analyses of the large data sets one can generate pseudo-developmental orders of cellular states as well as predictions of the underlying regulatory gene hierarchies. However, given that scRNA-seq analyses are ultimately correlative in nature, it is necessary to couple with experimental tests at a single-cell level to enable robust biological insights. I will illustrate use of single-cell RNA-seq and a new computational tool, ICGS, to analyze frequent as well as rare genomic states that are transited during a binary cell fate choice in hematopoiesis and in B cells responding to cognate antigen in the germinal center. Experimental tests of key predictions arising from the analyses will be discussed.