Human cells imaged using Cell Painting. Cell nuclei are shown in blue, actin filaments in yellow, the endoplasmic reticulum in magenta, golgi bodies in cyan, and mitochondria in green. Image Credit: Maria Lozada, Neal Lab
HealthTechnology United StatesAdvanced Tech Helps Scientists Learn More About Genes
A new genome-wide visualization approach is helping scientists study various cell types.
“This atlas itself is a first-in-class genome-scale resource for linking cell morphology to gene function, and I think it has a lot of discovery potential,” says JT Neal, institute scientist and co-director of type 2 diabetes systems genomics.
The system, coined PERISCOPE, combines two previous technologies: Cell Painting – which assigns colors to cells, such as the mitochondria being red and nuclear blue – and Optical Pooled Screening – which gives cells a “barcode,” helping researchers to systematically turn on or off individual genes and study their function in a cell. Through PERISCOPE, machine-learning models will then be able to detect very subtle changes in the images. Amazingly, the system is expected to be more than 10 times less expensive than comparable approaches and is thought to eventually be able to help with neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. As scientists work with and broaden PERISCOPE’s horizons, the system can image even more “colors” simultaneously, expanding the range of traits capturable and accessible to scientists for further research.
