Advances in Next Generation Sequencing & Single-Cell Gene Expression

Fluidigm has published the Fall 2011 edition of its Community eNewsletter.  The Fluidigm Community eNewsletter is an informative publication dedicated to providing an insight into the latest innovations in integrated fluidic circuit (IFC) technology and topical applications development which will be of interest to researchers involved with gene expression, SNP genotyping and sample preparation for next generation sequencing.

In this new issue, researchers from the Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, California report upon how they have used next-generation sequencing, to identify disease-causing mutations associated with congenital disorders of glycosylation. They discuss cost effective development and validation of a sequencing panel to test 24 genes that resulted in identification of positive controls and a number of variants.

Two further research papers by different groups at Stanford University focus upon ground breaking advances using Fluidigm IFC technology in single-cell gene expression. 

The first article details how a team of researchers from Stanford School of Medicine has discovered how to induce non-neuronal cells into becoming functional neurons with classic neuronal morphologies, protein markers, gene expression, and action potentials. Their data demonstrate that non-neuronal human somatic cells, as well as pluripotent stem cells, can be converted directly into neurons by insertion of neuronal transcription factors. These methods may facilitate robust generation of person-specific human neurons for in vitro disease modeling or future applications in regenerative medicine.

The second article details how researchers at Stanford University have studied the transcription factors and signalling pathways that aid the formation of neurons. They discovered that miR-9/9 and miR-124 are involved in the induction of neuronal morphology. Using single-cell gene expression, they were able to characterize neurons in these mRNAs and further study their role in human neurogenesis.

The Fall 2011 newsletter also provides details of a free seminar entitled 'Learn how your targeted resequencing can be as easy as 1-2-3' to be held at the forthcoming ASHG / ICHG conference in Montreal.  Links are provided to events around the world that Fluidigm will be attending in the latter months of 2011.

The Fall 2011 edition of the Fluidigm Corporation Community Newsletter is now available free to download from www.fluidigm.com/home/fluidigm/email/Q3_2011.html