Basic research in life science and medicine has dug into single cell level in recent years. Single-cell analysis offers to understand life from diverse perspectives and is used to profile cell heterogeneity to investigate mechanism of diseases. Single cell technologies have also found applications in forensic medicine and clinical reproductive medicine, while the techniques are rapidly evolving and have become more and more sophisticated. In this article, we reviewed various single cell isolation techniques and their pros and cons, including manual cell picking, laser capture microdissection and microfluidics, as well as analysis methods for DNA, RNA and protein in single cell. In addition, we summarized major up-to-date single cell research achievements and their potential applications.
近年来，生命科学和医学的基础研究已深入到单细胞阶段。单细胞研究为揭示生命活动的基本规律、探索细胞异质性、提高对疾病发病机制的认识等提供了重要的线索和依据，同时，单细胞技术已被应用于日常实践中，如法医学和临床生殖医学。单细胞研究中使用的技术也在不断变化，并越来越复杂。文中主要介绍单细胞分离技术，包括手工挑取、激光捕获显微切割和微流控技术，以及单细胞中DNA、RNA 和蛋白质分析方法的各种技术。此外，文中总结了近年来生命科学和医学领域的主要单细胞研究成果，讨论了单细胞相关技术和研究的不足，并介绍了其未来的发展方向。.
Keywords: laser capture microdissection (LCM); microfluidic; single cell; single cell genome sequencing; single cell transcriptome sequencing.