Researchers have developed a method that enables them to simultaneously visualize the gene activity in single cells.
According to the biologists from the University of Zurich, the technique is so efficient that -- for the first time ever -- scientists are able to study a thousand genes in parallel in 10,000 single human cells.
The method relies on a range of advanced technology, including robots and a supercomputer.
"When genes become active, specific transcript molecules are produced," co-author and PhD student Thomas Stoeger said in a statement. "We can stain them with the help of a robot."
Fluorescence microscope images of brightly glowing transcript molecules are created as a result, which are then analyzed using ETH Zurich's supercomputer Brutus.
The advantages of this new technique include the ability to examine the spatial organization of the transcript molecules (produced whenever cells activate a gene) of a variety of genes.
According to its creators, the method could have major implications in the fields of basic research and medical diagnostics.
Measuring gene activity is already a routine activity in the latter, and especially in the case of cancer. However, today's technologies, while able to determine the activity of genes through the measurement of transcript molecules, fail to measure the amount of transcript molecules to the same extent as the new method. Furthermore, they are unable to measure the spatial organization of transcript molecules within a cell.
In short, the authors write, the findings provide a completely unique look into the variability of gene activity in single cells.
According to co-author Lucas Pelkmans, "Our method will be of importance to basic research and the understanding of cancer tumors because it allows us to map the activity of genes within single tumor cells."