Trends in Plant Science
Volume 25, Issue 2, February 2020, Pages 186-197
Journal home page for Trends in Plant Science

Review
Single-Cell Transcriptomics: A High-Resolution Avenue for Plant Functional Genomics

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2019.10.008Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Plant tissues comprise a diverse set of cell types that can be distinguished by their functions. The concerted interplay of these cell types determines the functionality and plasticity of plant tissues.

  • Deciphering the different functions of cell types in a tissue is essential to understand plant development and adaptation to changing environments.

  • Single-cell RNA-seq technologies enable us now to capture transcriptional profiles in each cell type to describe the genetic basis of their identity and function. This knowledge of cell type-defining gene networks is as equally significant for fundamental science as it is for the development of crops with improved resilience capacities against climatic and other environmental stresses.

Plant function is the result of the concerted action of single cells in different tissues. Advances in RNA-seq technologies and tissue processing allow us now to capture transcriptional changes at single-cell resolution. The incredible potential of single-cell RNA-seq lies in the novel ability to study and exploit regulatory processes in complex tissues based on the behaviour of single cells. Importantly, the independence from reporter lines allows the analysis of any given tissue in any plant. While there are challenges associated with the handling and analysis of complex datasets, the opportunities are unique to generate knowledge of tissue functions in unprecedented detail and to facilitate the application of such information by mapping cellular functions and interactions in a plant cell atlas.

Keywords

single-cell RNA-seq
cell types
plant/root body plan
fluorescence-activated cell sorting

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These authors contributed equally to this work.