Expanding the horizons for single-cell applications on lab-on-a-chip devices

Stochastic events in gene expression, protein synthesis, and metabolite synthesis or degradation lead to cellular heterogeneity essential to life. In a tissue as we see in organs, there is strong heterogeneity among the constituting cells critical to its function. Thus, there exists a strong demand to develop new micro/nanosystems that would enable us to conduct single-cell analysis. This field is rapidly growing, as exemplified below with recent emerging technologies that now reveal sensitive single-cell "omics" analysis. We describe in the review some of the most promising technologies that will certainly transform our view of biology in the near future.