METHODS OF ISOLATING SPECIFIC CELLS OF CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS AND OBTAINING GENOMIC INFORMATION THEREFROM

摘要

The present invention relates to methods for isolating specific types of cells from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, isolating RNA therfrom and amplifiying the collected RNA to produce amplified nucleic acid, exposing the amplified nucleic acid, under hybridization conditions, to a collection of reference nucleic acids representative of a plurality of nematode genes, and identifying the particular reference nucleic acids which hybridize. The reference nucleic acids that hybridize more strongly, particularly those that exhibit greater hybridization relative to control hybridization levels obtained using neucleic acid collected from other C. elegans cells or the general population of C. elegans cells, may represent genes that are selectively expressed in the specific cell type isolated. The nucleic acid sequences fo the flanking regions of the cell type specific genes isolated may be analyzed to identify cell type specific expression elements.