Figure 7.

Precision of Gene Expression Regulation

(A) Cumulative distribution of the coefficient of variation of expression levels within an embryo divided by the coefficient of variation of expression levels across embryos. Green, orange, red, blue lines are data from 8-, 16-, 32-, and 64-cell embryos, respectively. Inset, zoom of the plot.

(B) Coefficient of variation of gene expression levels computed across single cells of embryos of the same stage.

(C) Fraction of cells expressing marker genes that classify cell types (STAR Methods).

(D) Violin plots of AP-2-like2 and Fgf9/16/20 expression levels in cells with detectable expression.

(E) Comparison between marker gene expression levels in cells with detectable expression belonging to marker-positive or -negative cell types.

(F) Cumulative distribution of the average coefficient of variation of expression levels of marker genes in bilaterally symmetric cell pairs (blue), in cells belonging to the same cell type (green), in cells belonging to the same embryo (black), and of the levels of genes with constitutive expression (red).

(G and H) Average coefficient of variation of the expression levels of marker genes in two equivalent cells of the bilaterally symmetric embryo (blue dots) compared to cells randomly sampled in the same embryo ([G], black), compared to cells of the same cell type randomly sampled across embryos ([H], green), or compared to genes with constitutive expression in that same cell pair (red). Dark gray and green shade, interquartile range; light gray and green shade, 10%–90% range.