Highly read on nature.com in October

An automated technique reveals gene activity across thousands of individual cells.

Accurately assessing variations in gene expression among cells could help to answer questions about cancer, regeneration and development, but large-scale measurements have been a challenge. A team led by Lucas Pelkmans at the University of Zurich in Switzerland modified a lower-throughput technique in which fluorescent molecules are attached to RNA templates from active genes. The team worked out ways to boost the fluorescent signal, such that individual templates can be detected at a magnification that allows many cells to be imaged at once. They developed a standardized, automated protocol to label RNA templates and adapted software to measure the templates' number and location.

Nature Methods http://doi.org/pct (2013)