Laboratory for the Physics of Life Thomas Gregor, Professor of Physics, Princeton University

Hernan G Garcia and Thomas Gregor. In: Gaspar I. (eds) RNA Detection. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1649. Humana Press, New York, NY (2018)

Abstract

mRNA synthesis is one of the earliest readouts of the activity of a transcribed gene, which is of particular interest in the context of metazoan cell fate specification. These processes are intrinsically dynamic and stochastic, which makes in vivo single-cell measurements inevitable. Here, we present the application of a technology that has been widely used in single celled organisms to measure transcriptional activity in developing embryos of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. The method allows for quantification of instantaneous polymerase occupancy of active gene loci and thereby enables the development and testing of models of gene regulation in development.