Back

Single-cell transcriptional dynamics in a living vertebrate

Eck, E.; Moretti, B.; Schlomann, B. H.; Bragantini, J.; Lange, M.; Zhao, X.; VijayKumar, S.; Valentin, G.; Loureiro, C.; Franco, P. P.; Jollivet, C.; Motomochi, B.; Royer, L. A.; Oates, A. C.; Garcia, H. G.

2025-06-11 developmental biology
10.1101/2024.01.03.574108 bioRxiv
Show abstract

The ability to quantify transcriptional dynamics in individual cells via live imaging has revolutionized our understanding of gene regulation. However, such measurements are lacking in the context of vertebrate embryos. We addressed this deficit by applying MS2-MCP mRNA labeling to the quantification of transcription in zebrafish, a model vertebrate. We developed a platform of transgenic organisms, light sheet fluorescence microscopy, and optimized image analysis that enables visualization and quantification of MS2 reporters. With these tools, we obtained single-cell, real-time measurements of transcriptional dynamics of the segmentation clock. Our measurements challenge the traditional view of smooth clock oscillations and instead suggest a model of discrete transcriptional bursts that are organized in space and time. Together, these results highlight how measuring single-cell transcriptional activity in the context of vertebrate organisms can reveal unexpected features of gene regulation and how this data can fuel the dialogue between theory and experiment.

Matching journals

The top 4 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.