The emergence and promise of single-cell temporal-omics approaches

Single-cell transcriptomics enables the measurement of gene expression in complex biological systems at the resolution of individual cells. Multivariate analysis of single-cell data helps describe the variation in expression accompanying cellular processes during embryonic development, disease progression and in response to stimuli. Likewise, new methods have extended the possibilities of single-cell analysis by measuring the transcriptome while simultaneously capturing information on lineage or past molecular events. These emerging approaches have the common strategy of querying a static snapshot for information related to different temporal stages. Single-cell temporal-omics methods open new possibilities such as extrapolating the future or correlating past events to present gene expression. We highlight advancements in the single-cell field, describe novel toolkits for investigation, and consider the potential impact of temporal-omics approaches for the study of disease progression.