Number of mRNAs in lymphoblastoid cell line GM12878

Range ~80,000 (from below 50,000 - to almost 300,000) mRNA molecules/cell
Organism Human Homo sapiens
Reference Marinov GK et al., From single-cell to cell-pool transcriptomes: stochasticity in gene expression and RNA splicing. Genome Res. 2014 Mar24(3):496-510. doi: 10.1101/gr.161034.113 abstract & p.501 right column 4th paragraphPubMed ID24299736
Method Abstract:"Here [investigators] apply the SMART-seq single-cell RNA-seq protocol to study the reference lymphoblastoid cell line GM12878. By using spike-in quantification standards, [they] estimate the absolute number of RNA molecules per cell for each gene and find significant variation in total mRNA content: between 50,000 and 300,000 transcripts per cell."
Comments p.501 right column 4th paragraph:”[Investigators] were also able to directly assess the total number of mRNAs present in each cell (Fig. 3C,D). Based on the average mass of RNA in each cell (derived from bulk RNA samples from a known number of cells) and the average length of mRNAs in the human genome, [they] estimated that each GM12878 cell contains, on average, ~80,000 mRNAs. However, [investigators] observed striking cell-to-cell differences in the total transcript number of single cells, with some cells expressing <50,000 mRNAs and others almost 300,000. In contrast, pool/split experiments exhibited remarkable uniformity (between 50,000 and 100,000 transcripts) and agree well with prior expectations. It is therefore unlikely that the observed cell-to-cell variability is due to technical noise.”
Entered by Uri M
ID 111775