Comprehensive single-cell transcriptional profiling of a multicellular organism

Sequencing each cell of the nematode Single-cell sequencing is challenging owing to the limited biological material available in an individual cell and the high cost of sequencing across multiple cells. Cao et al. developed a two-step combinatorial barcoding method to profile both single-cell and single-nucleus transcriptomes without requiring physical isolation of each cell. The authors profiled almost 50,000 single cells from an individual Caenorhabditis elegans larval stage and were able to identify and recover information from different, even rare, cell types. Science , this issue p. 661