PMID- 30525044 OWN - NLM STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE VI - 5 TI - Single Cell Gene Expression to Understand the Dynamic Architecture of the Heart. PG - 167 LA - eng PT - Journal Article PT - Review PL - Switzerland TA - Front Cardiovasc Med JT - Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine JID - 101653388 IS - 2297-055X (Print) LID - 10.3389/fcvm.2018.00167 [doi] FAU - Massaia, Andrea AU - Massaia A AD - British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence and British Heart Foundation Centre for Regenerative Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom. FAU - Chaves, Patricia AU - Chaves P AD - British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence and British Heart Foundation Centre for Regenerative Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom. FAU - Samari, Sara AU - Samari S AD - British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence and British Heart Foundation Centre for Regenerative Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom. FAU - Miragaia, Ricardo Júdice AU - Miragaia RJ AD - Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Cambridge, United Kingdom. FAU - Meyer, Kerstin AU - Meyer K AD - Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Cambridge, United Kingdom. FAU - Teichmann, Sarah Amalia AU - Teichmann SA AD - Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Cambridge, United Kingdom. FAU - Noseda, Michela AU - Noseda M AD - British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence and British Heart Foundation Centre for Regenerative Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom. IS - 2297-055X (Linking) OTO - NOTNLM OT - RNA-seq OT - cellular landscape OT - gene expression OT - heart OT - qRT-PCR OT - single cell OT - transcriptomics PMC - PMC6258739 LR - 20231004 DP - 2018 DEP - 20181121 AB - The recent development of single cell gene expression technologies, and especially single cell transcriptomics, have revolutionized the way biologists and clinicians investigate organs and organisms, allowing an unprecedented level of resolution to the description of cell demographics in both healthy and diseased states. Single cell transcriptomics provide information on prevalence, heterogeneity, and gene co-expression at the individual cell level. This enables a cell-centric outlook to define intracellular gene regulatory networks and to bridge toward the definition of intercellular pathways otherwise masked in bulk analysis. The technologies have developed at a fast pace producing a multitude of different approaches, with several alternatives to choose from at any step, including single cell isolation and capturing, lysis, RNA reverse transcription and cDNA amplification, library preparation, sequencing, and computational analyses. Here, we provide guidelines for the experimental design of single cell RNA sequencing experiments, exploring the current options for the crucial steps. Furthermore, we provide a complete overview of the typical data analysis workflow, from handling the raw sequencing data to making biological inferences. Significantly, advancements in single cell transcriptomics have already contributed to outstanding exploratory and functional studies of cardiac development and disease models, as summarized in this review. In conclusion, we discuss achievable outcomes of single cell transcriptomics' applications in addressing unanswered questions and influencing future cardiac clinical applications.