Molecular and Genetic Medicine

Single Cell Transcriptomics for Autoimmune Disorders

Abstract

Bhawna Gupta and Sunil Kumar Raghav

The interplay of genetic, immunological and environmental factors is the driving force towards autoimmunity and each of these branches of biological science is necessary to identify the cause and progress of autoimmune disorders. Differential transcript abundance as an effect of environmental or epigenetic modifications may directly regulate emergence while a sustained copy number increase may drive disease progression. A precise evaluation of these transcript level differences could be the key to understand the mechanism of development and progression of autoimmune diseases however it is imperative to quantitate the subtle changes at the highest resolution. This review summarizes the studies that have explored the importance of analyzing differential transcriptome at single cell resolution, further to emphasize the importance of this approach for enhanced understanding and to identify more sensitive and specific biomarkers for autoimmune diseases.