Review of A NanoliterScale Nucleic Acid Processor with

Review of: A Nanoliter-Scale Nucleic Acid Processor with Parallel Architecture Tiffany Guo October 10, 2008 20. 309

J. W. Hong, et al. "A nanoliter-scale nucleic acid processor with parallel architecture, " Nature Biotech. 22(4): pp. 435 -439 (2004)

Single Cell Nucleic Acid Isolation • Study presence (through DNA) or expression (through RNA) of specific genes – Identify cells of specific genotype for experimentation – Offer clues to differential phenotypes under specific conditions • Study transcriptional variation between cells of same genotype

How It Works: The Components

How it works: Mixing

How it works: DNA Isolation by Affinity Column

How it works: Elution

Parallel Architecture

Microfluidics • Process requires minimal numbers of cells – Eliminate overnight culturing steps – Study expression on the single cell level – Study expression of slow growing cells more easily

Application: Variable Expression of Motility Genes in Tumor Cells W. Wang, et al. “Tumor cells caught in the act of invading: their strategy for enhanced cell motility, ” TRENDS in Cell Bio. 15(3): pp. 138 -145 (2005) “There is, however, the possibility that expression patterns “If a these specific combination of reflect the noninvasive cells gene expression patterns canthat be make up the bulk of the tumor correlated with metastic ability, mass and then that the however, suchexpression analyses signature of invasive tumor cells – can be predictive of metastatic arguably the motile population outcome…” essential for metasasis – might be masked. ”

Future Directions: Micro PCR E. A. Ottesen, et al. “Microfluidic Digital PCR Enables Multigene Analysis of Individual Environmental Bacteria, Science, 314: pp. 1464 -1467 (2006)

QUESTIONS?