Technological Validation of Single Cell Expression Analysis

Toulouse « Genome and Transcriptome » core facility (France) bought and validated the Fluidigm C1 Single-Cell auto prep system. This technology separates and prepares up to 96 individual cells for transcriptomic analysis. Several rabbit  embryonic stem cells lines have been studied using the Single-Cell auto prep system. Indeed pluripotent stem cells are interesting biotechnological tools because they can be genetically modified in vitro and used to create chimera animals. These cells display all the pluripotent stem cells characteristics, i.e. pluripotency genes expression, alkaline phosphatase activity, ability to differentiate into the 3 germ layers and teratoma induction. They also display characteristics more specific to rodent and primate pluripotent stem cells Moreover, in the same stem cell line, these cells display heterogeneity in surface markers and functional characteristics. The goal of this project is to study these stem cells lines heterogeneity at the transcriptional level, especially the pluripotency and differentiation genes, using a single cell - qPCR approach.