Assays from very few number of cells - (Jan/12/2015 )

Hi all,

I am at present working with antibiotic screening on cardiac cells, which results in very few number of cells after treatment.

With this low number of cells, western blot and RNA extraction becomes difficult.

Please give me an idea about downstream processes or assays which i can utilize to study signaling pathways in very few number of cells.

Does there exists any kits or array to give results from very few number of cells? immunocytochemistry is the only method which i could find so far.

Please please help

Thank you in advance

TEM, SEM

PCR

single tube - Linear amplification of DNA (LinDA) for ChIP or any genome wide studies

single tube, quantitative RT-PCR 

single cell microinjection

single cell western blotting (http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v11/n7/full/nmeth.2992.html)

You can also think about transforming your cells to make an immortalized cell line and conduct assays on the cell line for want of better reagent.