Regulatory Dynamics of Cell Differentiation Revealed by True Time Series From Multinucleate Single Cells

Quantifying 35 transcripts in a single tube: model-based calibration of the GeXP multiplex RT-PCR assay

Background

Quantitative analysis of differential gene expression is of central importance in molecular life sciences. The Gene eXpression Profiling technology (GeXP) relies on multiplex RT-PCR and subsequent capillary electrophoretic separation of the amplification products and allows to quantify the transcripts of at least 35 genes with a single reaction and one dye.

Results

We provide a kinetic model of primer binding and PCR product formation as the rational basis for taking and evaluating calibration curves. The calibration procedure and the model predictions were validated with the help of a purposefully designed data processing workflow supported by easy-to-use Perl scripts for calibration, data evaluation, and quality control. We further demonstrate the robustness and linearity of quantification of individual transcripts at variable relative abundance of other co-amplified transcripts in a complex mixture of RNAs isolated from differentiating Physarum polycephalum plasmodial cells.

Conclusions

We conclude that GeXP analysis is a robust, sensitive, and useful method when the transcripts of tens to few hundred genes are to be precisely quantified in a high number of samples.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12896-021-00689-4.