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Single-cell technology

Writing cellular history in protein chains

Nature Biotechnology (2023)Cite this article

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Elongating protein fibers record the transcriptional activity of single cells for later readout by imaging.

Previous studies have demonstrated the feasibility of encoding cellular history in the form of nucleic acid. However, analysis of DNA or RNA sequence modifications requires cell lysis, which eliminates spatial information. In contrast, the protein-based methods of Lin et al. and Linghu et al. retain spatial information, enabling activity mapping in complex cellular populations in the context of intact tissues.

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Fig. 1: Molecular systems for recording transcriptional activity.

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  1. Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Hyung-Bae Kwon

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  1. Hyung-Bae Kwon
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Correspondence to Hyung-Bae Kwon.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Kwon, HB. Writing cellular history in protein chains. Nat Biotechnol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01597-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01597-4

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