Research strategies for single-cell transcriptome analysis in plant leaves

Abstract

The recent and continuous improvement in single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology has led to its emergence as an efficient experimental approach in plant research. However, compared with single-cell research in animals and humans, the application of scRNA-seq in plant research is limited by several challenges, including cell separation, cell type annotation, cellular function analysis, and cell-cell communication networks. In addition, the unavailability of corresponding reliable and stable analysis methods and standards has resulted in the relative decentralization of plant single-cell research. Considering these shortcomings, this review summarizes the research progress in plant leaf using scRNA-seq. In addition, it describes the corresponding feasible analytical methods and associated difficulties and problems encountered in the current research. In the end, we provide a speculative overview of the development of plant single-cell transcriptome research in the future.

Keywords: higher plants; leaves; research strategies; single-cell transcriptome.