Résumé
Studying the spatiotemporal control of gene regulatory networks at the single‐cell level is still a challenge, yet it is key to understanding the mechanisms driving cellular identity. In their recent study, Aerts and colleagues (González‐Blas et al, 2020) develop a new strategy to spatially map and integrate single‐cell transcriptome and epigenome profiles in the Drosophila eye‐antennal disc and to deduce in each cell precise enhancer‐to‐gene activity relationships. This opens a new era in the transcriptional regulation field, as it allows extracting from each of the thousands of cells forming a tissue the critical features driving their identity, from enhancer sequences to transcription factors to gene regulatory networks. Analysing gene regulatory networks at the single‐cell level has remained challenging. In their recent work, Aerts and colleagues (González‐Blas et al, 2020) develop a strategy to spatially integrate single‐cell transcriptome and epigenome data and infer enhancer‐gene activity relationships in each cell.