Cellular Heterogeneity: Do Differences Make a Difference?

Overview

Journal Cell

Publisher Cell Press

Specialty Cell Biology

Date 2010 May 19

PMID 20478246

Citations 467

Authors

Steven J Altschuler

Lani F Wu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

A central challenge of biology is to understand how individual cells process information and respond to perturbations. Much of our knowledge is based on ensemble measurements. However, cell-to-cell differences are always present to some degree in any cell population, and the ensemble behaviors of a population may not represent the behaviors of any individual cell. Here, we discuss examples of when heterogeneity cannot be ignored and describe practical strategies for analyzing and interpreting cellular heterogeneity.

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