EXPRESSION PROFILING OF SINGLE CELLS USING 3-PRIME-END AMPLIFICATION (TPEA) PCR

The ability to relate the physiological status of individual cells to the complement of genes they express is limited by current methodologi cal approaches for performing these analyses. We report here the devel opment of a robust and reproducible method for amplifying 3' sequences of mRNA derived from single cells and demonstrate that the amplified cDNA, derived from individual human lymphoblastoma cells, can be used for the expression profiling of up to 40 different genes per cell. In addition, we show that 3 prime end amplification (TPEA) PCR can be use d to enable the detection of both high and low abundance mRNA species in samples harvested from live neurons in rat brain slices. This proce dure will facilitate the study of complex tissue function at the cellu lar level.