Gene expression profile at single cell level yeast cells under stress

To understand transcriptomic changes in baker’s yeast S. cerevisiae cells under stress conditions, we sequenced 117 yeast cells under three stress treatments (hypotonic condition, glucose starvation and amino acid starvation) using a full-length based single-cell RNA-Seq method. We found that though single cells from the same treatment showed varying degrees of uniformity, technical noise and batch effects can confound results significantly. However, upon careful selection of samples to reduce technical artifacts and account for batch-effects, we were able to capture distinct transcriptomic signatures for different stress conditions. Our results show that a full single cell based transcriptomic analysis of the yeast may help paint a clearer picture of how the model organism responds to stress than do bulk cell population-based methods. Yeast single cells were subject to three different stress treatments (hypotonic condition, glucose starvation and amino acid starvation) and sequenced using a full-length single cell RNAseq protocol