FISH and Chips

Abstract

How do gene expression patterns change when a cell is perturbed, for example, by exposure to a pathogen or a drug? Although current chip-based methods of transcriptional profiling have provided researchers with a powerful tool for addressing this question, these methods require disruption of cellular architecture, meaning that important information may be lost. By combining elements of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and microarray technology, Levsky et al. have developed a technique that allows them to visualize the transcription of many genes simultaneously inside a single cell--essentially using the cell nucleus as a "chip." J. M. Levsky, S. M. Shenoy, R. C. Pezo, R. H. Singer, Single-Cell gene expression profiling, Science 297, 836-840 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]