149 results about "Phenotypic analysis" patented technology

The invention discloses a plant three-dimensional Gaussian phenotype extraction method based on an improved parameter adaptive fast pose optimization algorithm, and the method comprises the steps: obtaining a multi-view image sequence of a plant through a camera system, estimating the pose of a camera through a global adaptive fast pose optimization algorithm, and generating a sparse three-dimensional point cloud of a scene, pose estimation errors in an agricultural scene can be effectively eliminated, the problem of error accumulation in a traditional method is avoided, and high-precision camera pose estimation is guaranteed; secondly, taking the camera pose and the sparse three-dimensional point cloud as input, converting an object in a scene into a plurality of three-dimensional Gaussian points, performing three-dimensional reconstruction based on a Gaussian representation method, and generating a dense three-dimensional point cloud, thereby solving common shielding and dynamic change problems in an agricultural scene, and improving the quality and efficiency of point cloud reconstruction; and finally, based on the obtained dense three-dimensional point cloud, phenotypic characteristics of the plants are extracted, and more accurate data support is provided for crop phenotypic analysis.

The invention belongs to the field of molecular biology, and particularly relates to application of OsDOF3 protein or a coding gene thereof to improvement of rice broad-spectrum disease resistance and regulation of agronomic traits. According to the application, an OsDOF3 knockout mutant and an overexpression transgenic line are constructed under the background of susceptible rice, resistance phenotype analysis is performed by inoculating various pathogenic bacteria (including pyricularia oryzae, rhizoctonia solani and bacterial blight), and it is proved that OsDOF3 participates in regulation and control of an immunoreaction pathway of rice to fungal diseases (rice blast and sheath blight) and bacterial diseases (bacterial blight). Meanwhile, the application also finds that after a strong promoter ubi is adopted for driving, an overexpression material of the OsDOF3 is shorter than that of a wild plant, and the OsDOF3 influences normal growth and development of rice while stimulating plant immune response. The invention provides important gene resources and molecular theoretical basis for developing a new variety of broad-spectrum disease-resistant rice.

The invention relates to the technical field of computer vision and soybean plant phenotype measurement, and discloses a soybean plant phenotype analysis method, system and device based on three-dimensional reconstruction, and the method comprises the following steps: setting a device for carrying out multi-view image collection on a soybean plant to collect multi-view soybean plant images; and an end-to-end soybean plant leaf phenotype measurement model taking Pointnet Transform as a trunk is constructed, and the model can directly predict key phenotype characteristics such as leaf area and leaf perimeter from high-precision leaf point cloud data. Discrete point cloud voxelization processing needs to be carried out before the model is constructed, and conditions are provided for semantic segmentation. According to the method, automatic acquisition of the soybean plant point cloud, automatic segmentation of the soybean plant point cloud and automatic measurement of the soybean plant leaf point cloud phenotype are realized, a data basis is provided for soybean plant phenotype analysis, and high-throughput and intelligent soybean plant phenotype analysis is realized.

The invention belongs to the technical field of ryegrass plant tillering regulation and control methods, and discloses a ryegrass LpZAT12 gene for regulating and controlling plant tillering and application, and the nucleotide sequence of the LpZAT12 gene is as shown in SEQ ID NO: 1; the amino acid sequence is shown as SEQ ID NO: 2; and the nucleotide sequence of the corresponding promoter is as shown in SEQ ID NO: 3. Transgenic ryegrass obtained through a perennial ryegrass genetic transformation system is subjected to phenotypic analysis, and the result shows that the gene inhibits tillering of perennial ryegrass. The discovery of the LpZAT12 gene provides a new gene resource for cultivating a new perennial ryegrass variety with strong tillering ability. The overexpression of the gene can reduce the management cost of the lawn and prolong the management period; knockout of the gene can promote plant tillering, increase plant biomass and improve industrial benefits, and application of the gene has important production practice significance.

The invention discloses a high-precision phenotype analysis system for plant growth stress response, and relates to the field of agriculture. Comprising a central analysis platform, and the central analysis platform comprises a calculation engine, a stress diagnosis model and a visual interface; the edge calculation stage comprises a data preprocessing module, a feature extraction module and a time sequence compression module; and the sensor array comprises a main control unit, a hyperspectral camera, a thermal infrared camera, a 3DDoF camera and an environment sensor group. Based on a space-time registration mechanism of transfer learning, errors are reduced, the problem of stomatal conductance modeling distortion caused by time difference is solved, a dynamic weight fusion model adjusts feature weights in real time through sensor confidence and environment fitness, illumination abrupt change and temperature and humidity fluctuation interference are eliminated, and the accuracy of stomatal conductance modeling is improved. Compared with a traditional fixed weight model, the stress identification precision is improved.

The invention discloses a sugarcane live-action three-dimensional phenotype extraction method based on a 3D Gaussian splashing technology. The method comprises the following steps of data acquisition, wherein a 360-degree omnibearing shooting mode is executed around a single sugarcane plant for shooting or video recording to obtain complete image or video data of the sugarcane plant; preprocessing the data; 3D model construction comprises the following sub-steps: SfM sparse reconstruction: instance segmentation; the method comprises the following steps: carrying out 3D Gaussian Splicing guided by a mask; point cloud data processing includes the following sub-steps: point cloud preprocessing including voxel downsampling, statistical filtering and radius filtering; segmenting and identifying stalks / leaves; the segmentation comprises RANSAC plane segmentation, DBSCAN clustering and region growth; the phenotype analysis comprises grid reconstruction and area / volume / perimeter / plant height calculation. According to the invention, the problems of difficult data acquisition, large workload and incomplete information acquisition in the prior art are solved.

This invention discloses a rice starch synthesis-related gene, OsFLO17, its encoded protein, and its applications. Through phenotypic analysis of the rice endosperm mealy mutant flo17 and preliminary localization of the target gene, the starch synthesis-related protein OsFLO17 was ultimately cloned. This protein consists of the amino acid sequence shown in SEQ ID NO.3. The starch granule development-related protein of this invention affects the rice endosperm starch synthesis process. Introducing the encoding gene of this protein into plants with abnormal starch granules can yield transgenic plants with normal starch filling. Therefore, the protein and its encoded gene of this invention can be applied to plant genetic improvement.

The invention relates to the technical field of soybean seed testing, in particular to a soybean stalk seed testing device and portable seed testing equipment, which comprises a scanning bin, a chuck, a Y-axis movement unit, a 3D scanning unit, an electric turntable, an electric control unit and a display, the Y-axis movement unit can move in the height direction; the 3D scanning unit performs imaging scanning on the stalks; the electric rotary table drives the stalks to rotate by 360 degrees; the electric control unit controls scanning; according to the device, the electric control unit controls the electric rotary table and the Y-axis movement unit, the 3D scanning unit is matched, all-directional imaging scanning of soybean stalks is achieved, appearance and internal feature information is accurately obtained, and phenotype analysis accuracy is improved; according to the automatic seed testing process, manual intervention is reduced, seed testing time is shortened, efficiency is improved, and the problems that a traditional seed testing method is low in efficiency and prone to being interfered by subjective factors, and the requirements of precision agriculture for high throughput and multi-dimensional data cannot be met are solved.

The invention relates to the technical field of peanut phenotype intelligent analysis scheme design based on an unmanned aerial vehicle, in particular to a peanut phenotype intelligent analysis method and system based on the unmanned aerial vehicle. The method comprises the following steps: acquiring a multi-modal image through a visible light, multispectral and thermal infrared sensor carried by an unmanned aerial vehicle, separating a plant area through illumination normalization and soil mask treatment, aligning data in different growth stages by using a time sequence registration algorithm, and extracting morphological, spectral and thermal characteristics to construct a fusion matrix; inputting the matrix into a dynamic growth model fusing LSTM and a crop physiological model, and outputting the number of pods, biomass and disease resistance parameters; and generating fertilization and irrigation decision suggestions in combination with a preset threshold. The system comprises a multi-modal data acquisition module, an image processing module, a feature fusion module, a model calculation module and a decision generation module. According to the method, multi-source data collaborative analysis, time sequence growth precise modeling and field management dynamic optimization are realized, and the peanut phenotype analysis efficiency and decision scientificity are remarkably improved.

The invention relates to the field of biology, and provides a phenotype analysis method, electronic equipment and a storage medium, and the method comprises the steps: obtaining first information and a plurality of pieces of second information; obtaining a first vector of the first information according to a preset knowledge graph; obtaining a second vector of multiple pieces of second information according to a preset knowledge graph; based on the trained graph neural network, obtaining a first feature vector of the first information and second feature vectors of the multiple pieces of second information according to the first vector of the first information and the second vectors of the multiple pieces of second information; calculating the similarity between the plurality of pieces of second information and the first information according to the first feature vector of the first information and the second feature vectors of the plurality of pieces of second information; and determining target second information from the multiple pieces of second information according to the similarity between the multiple pieces of second information and the first information. According to the method, the searching efficiency among the symptom phenotype description information, the gene information and the disease information is improved.

The invention relates to the technical field of rice phenotype extraction, and discloses a rice fine phenotype extraction method based on three-dimensional vision, a terminal and a storage medium. The method comprises the following steps: acquiring a multi-view image of a rice plant by using a depth camera, and performing camera attitude estimation on the multi-view enhanced image to obtain camera internal and external parameters corresponding to each view; constructing a neural radiation field network, training the neural radiation field network by taking the enhanced image, the contour mask and internal and external parameters of the camera as input, and learning color and density distribution of a scene by utilizing a volume rendering technology; extracting surface points based on a mixed threshold strategy by using the trained neural radiation field network, and generating a rice three-dimensional point cloud; inputting the rice three-dimensional point cloud into a point cloud instance segmentation network, and outputting an instance mask containing each organ of the rice and a segmentation result of a three-dimensional bounding box; and counting phenotypic parameters of the rice according to a segmentation result. According to the method, the fine instance segmentation of the high-density point cloud is realized while the reconstruction precision is ensured, and the phenotypic analysis of the spike fraction is supported.

The invention discloses a method and a system for assisting in inputting clinical information of rare diseases and analyzing gene mutation based on phenotypes. The method comprises the following steps: firstly, acquiring clinical information in voice, text and image forms of a patient through a multi-source data acquisition module, converting the clinical information into characters, and performing entity recognition and standardization processing to generate structured medical record data; secondly, extracting clinical phenotypes from the structured data; furthermore, a candidate gene list is obtained according to the gene-disease relationship, comprehensive scoring and sorting are carried out, and a concerned gene list is output. According to the method, efficient structured input and standardization of clinical information are realized, the accuracy and automation level of phenotype-gene matching are remarkably improved, the gene variation interpretation period is effectively shortened, and intelligent support is provided for precise diagnosis of genetic diseases.

The invention relates to the technical field of plant genetic engineering, in particular to application of an algae NySAT2 gene in regulation and control of alfalfa crude protein and detergent fiber. According to the invention, a sequence after codon optimization of an NySAT2 gene coding region is obtained by using gene synthesis and codon optimization technologies, an algae NySAT2 gene overexpression vector is constructed, a target gene is introduced into an alfalfa genome by using an agrobacterium rhizogenes mediated genetic transformation method, and a transgenic plant is obtained by using a genetic transformation system. Molecular identification and phenotypic analysis show that on the premise of keeping normal growth vigor (plant height and biomass have no significant difference from those of a wild type), the crude protein content of a medicago sativa plant with the overexpressed NySAT2 gene is remarkably increased compared with that of the wild type medicago sativa plant, and meanwhile, the contents of acid detergent fibers and neutral detergent fibers are remarkably reduced, so that the content of the crude protein in the medicago sativa plant with the overexpressed NySAT2 gene is remarkably increased. The forage quality and the feeding value of the medicago sativa are effectively improved.

The invention discloses a method for assisting hawthorn breeding based on phenotypic omics, and relates to the technical field of phenotypic omics assisted hawthorn breeding. Comprising the following steps: S1, acquiring phenotypic data of normally growing hawthorns by using a high-throughput imaging system and a phenotypic analysis system, and detecting and analyzing various characters of the hawthorns; s2, establishing a hawthorn multi-dimensional phenotypic group database, and obtaining hawthorn breeding key character quantitative indexes; s3, constructing a phenotype-genotype correlation model according to the obtained hawthorn breeding key character quantitative indexes, and mining new functional genes to realize early prediction of breeding; and S4, creating a phenotype exponential weighting algorithm for parent matching. The method for assisting hawthorn breeding based on phenotypic omics is established, the problems of long hawthorn breeding period and high cost are solved, and the hawthorn breeding efficiency is effectively improved.

The invention discloses a rice photo-thermo-sensitive male sterility mutant Osgpat6.1, a corresponding gene locus OsGPAT6.1 of the rice photo-thermo-sensitive male sterility mutant Osgpat6.1 and application of a coding protein of the rice photo-thermo-sensitive male sterility mutant The phenotypic gene OsGPAT6.1 for controlling the photo-thermo-sensitive male sterility of the rice is obtained by cloning through phenotypic analysis of a mutant and preliminary positioning of a target gene, an amino acid sequence of the phenotypic gene OsGPAT6.1 is encoded as shown in SEQ ID NO.1 to form a protein, and the gene affects the development process of rice pollen by affecting tapetum degradation. The OsGPAT6.1 gene is subjected to gene editing, or a mutant allele of the OsGPAT6.1 gene is introduced into a conventional rice variety in a hybridization manner, so that a photo-thermo-sensitive male sterile material for a two-line sterile line can be obtained. The gene and the encoding protein thereof can be applied to creation of photo-thermo-sensitive sterile rice and germplasm genetic improvement of the photo-thermo-sensitive sterile rice.

The invention discloses an application of a PadPGR5a gene in fast-growing high-quality high-yield poplar breeding, belongs to the technical field of genetic engineering, and particularly relates to the application of the PadPGR5a gene in fast-growing high-quality high-yield poplar breeding, and the nucleotide sequence of the PadPGR5a gene is shown as SEQ ID NO.1. The invention further discloses an application of the PadPGR5a gene in fast-growing high-quality high-yield poplar breeding. Through phenotypic analysis, the plant height of the PadPGR5a gene overexpressed transgenic poplar is obviously increased, the net photosynthetic rate is obviously improved, and the oxidative stress resistance is obviously enhanced. It is shown that the PadPGR5a gene is an important forest fast-growing improved gene resource, and a new excellent transgenic variety can be provided for construction of a fast-growing high-quality high-yield poplar man-made forest by means of a genetic engineering technology.

The invention discloses application of a TaPP2CL-A gene in regulation and control of wheat tiller number, and belongs to the technical field of plant antiviral gene engineering. The invention discloses a novel gene TaPP2CL-A for regulating and controlling the tiller number of wheat. Wheat genetic transformation experiments and further phenotypic analysis find that compared with wild Fielder, the tiller number of a TaPP2CL-A overexpressed plant is reduced, and finally the yield of a single plant is reduced; the tiller number of a TaPP2CL-A silent plant is increased, so that the yield of a single plant is increased. The TaPP2CL-A gene provided by the invention can be used in the field of transgenic breeding, and can lay a theoretical foundation for wheat yield increase and character improvement.

This invention discloses a method and system for three-dimensional phenotypic analysis of potatoes based on computer vision. The method includes: first, constructing an acquisition system with multiple high-resolution RGB cameras in a triangular layout and a uniform light source, including a motion turntable; after distortion correction via checkerboard calibration, simultaneously acquiring multi-view images of potatoes; next, generating a dense depth map through sparse point cloud reconstruction combined with an improved multi-view stereo vision reconstruction mechanism including dynamic adaptive aggregation range and curvature-weighted matching cost calculation; registering and fusing to obtain three-dimensional point cloud data containing color and texture; then extracting basic parameters such as length, volume, and RGB features; and using an improved point cloud segmentation model including curvature-sensitive sampling, geometric attention modules, and a hybrid loss function to segment buds and extract parameters such as number and depth. This provides technical support for potato breeding and intelligent sorting.

The application discloses a kind of BRCA1 / 2 The application discloses a function verification method of genetic unknown meaning variation. By introducing only one target variation in each experiment, combined with optimized gRNA and template design, the method ensures that the target variation has high initial abundance in the edited cell population, thereby significantly reducing the background noise of second-generation sequencing detection and phenotype analysis, improving the sensitivity and reliability of variation function signal detection. The method provides a more flexible, accurate and easy-to-operate function verification scheme for BRCA1 / 2 The method provides a more flexible, accurate and easy-to-operate function verification scheme for interpretation of unknown meaning variation, and is expected to solve the bottleneck of difficulty in obtaining and interpreting function data of unknown meaning variation.

The invention relates to a corn ZmNF-YC3 gene and an SNP molecular marker and application thereof, and relates to the technical field of plant genetic engineering, the nucleotide sequence of the corn ZmNF-YC3 gene is as shown in SEQ ID NO.1, the amino acid of encoding protein is as shown in SEQ ID NO.2, and the corn ZmNF-YC3 gene can positively regulate the plant height and ear height of a corn plant. The corn ZmNF-YC3 gene has the advantages that by analyzing the expression profile of the corn ZmNF-YC3 gene, carrying out candidate gene correlation analysis on the plant height character of the corn ZmNF-YC3 gene and carrying out plant height and ear position height phenotype analysis on a ZmNF-YC3 gene knockout corn mutant material, the corn ZmNF-YC3 gene is proved to have a positive regulation effect on the plant height and ear position height character of corn; important gene resources and molecular markers are provided for creating novel dwarf density-tolerant maize germplasm by utilizing a molecular breeding means.

The invention provides methods for classifying fluorescent flow cytometry data. In some cases, the methods include processing the flow cytometry data with a supervised algorithm configured to cluster the fluorescent flow cytometry data into different populations based on the relationship of data points to associated thresholds. In embodiments, the methods include calculating and combining spill-over diffusion coefficients in a spill-over diffusion matrix to determine the extent of spill-over diffusion. In some embodiments, the fluorescent flow cytometry data populations are adjusted to reduce the extent of spill-over diffusion. In embodiments, the spill-over diffusion adjusted populations are partitioned after evaluating potential partitions relative to the thresholds. In embodiments, the partitioned fluorescent flow cytometry data populations are classified (i.e., phenotyped) according to a hierarchy. The invention also provides systems and computer readable media for classifying fluorescent flow cytometry data.

The utility model discloses a hyper-spectral imaging analysis system for a RhizoTronn root phenotype, which relates to the technical field of plant phenotype and spectral imaging and comprises an X-axis, an imaging unit and an imaging light source are arranged on the X-axis, and the X-axis is equipped with a plant culture module. The technical problem that an existing plant root system phenotype imaging observation device cannot conduct in-situ imaging analysis on the side face of an overground plant and an underground root system at the same time is solved. The function of performing in-situ reflected light hyperspectral and UV-MCF biological fluorescence hyperspectral imaging analysis on the overground plant side surface and the underground root system of the plant at the same time through one set of imaging unit is realized; a root phenotype analysis method is expanded to comprehensive analysis of physicochemical properties, biochemical components and physiological states of plants and root samples from two hyperspectral dimensions of reflected light and fluorescence, synchronous imaging and coupling analysis of canopy phenotypes and root phenotypes are realized, phenotype analysis cost is reduced, phenotype imaging analysis efficiency is improved, and the method is suitable for popularization and application. And the space is also saved.

The invention relates to a multi-technology fusion rapid breeding method based on exogenous frame-free wheat homozygous mutants, and belongs to the technical field of wheat genetic breeding. The method comprises the following steps: determining a target gene (such as an LCY gene), creating a homozygous mutant by utilizing a CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, separating an exogenous Cas9 editing frame through hybridization and PCR detection, developing a KASP molecular marker to track a mutation type, and performing phenotype analysis. According to the method, gene editing, cross breeding and molecular detection technologies are fused, the problems that traditional breeding is long in period and foreign genes are difficult to remove are solved, rapid and accurate wheat germplasm creation is achieved, and an efficient way is provided for functional gene utilization.

The invention relates to the technical field of plant phenotype analysis, in particular to an index analysis method for plant phenotype digital diversity. The problems that in an existing plant phenotype analysis method, the data dimension is single, discretization is limited, dynamic nature is insufficient, and a system maintenance scheme is lacked are effectively solved. According to the method, environment-phenotype dynamic data is acquired by constructing a heterogeneous monitoring network, discrete phenotype data is converted into a continuous probability space in combination with a three-dimensional ellipsoid domain model, and accurate evaluation and dynamic maintenance of plant phenotype diversity are realized through subdomain decomposition, dynamic correction, thermodynamic diagram generation, depth tracking and inverse mapping analysis. According to the method, genotype-environment interaction characteristics can be effectively captured, phenotypic response risk sites and lag units can be accurately positioned, a systematic solution is provided for plant variety-environment adaptation and diversity maintenance, and the dynamic nature, accuracy and practicability of plant phenotypic analysis are improved.

The invention relates to the technical field of gene engineering, in particular to an application of a YJL151C gene or a protein thereof. On the basis of SCRaMbLE rearrangement, bioinformatics analysis and phenotypic analysis are combined for gene mining work, and a series of tolerance-related genes are obtained. The research finally finds that the over-expression of the YJL151C gene can improve the drug resistance of the strain to nystatin, and a drug-resistant strain with precise corrosion resistance is provided for the food fermentation industry. The strain can also be cooperated with other antagonistic microorganisms to be used for biological prevention and control of crops or feed.

The invention belongs to the field of molecular biology, and particularly relates to application of OsPLDRP1 protein or a coding gene thereof to improvement of rice broad-spectrum disease resistance and regulation of agronomic traits. According to the application, an OsPLDRP1 knockout mutant and an overexpression transgenic line are constructed under the background of susceptible rice, resistance phenotype analysis is carried out by inoculating various pathogenic bacteria (including pyricularia oryzae, rhizoctonia solani and xanthomonas oryzae), and it is proved that OsPLDRP1 participates in regulation and control of immunoreaction pathways of rice to fungal diseases (rice blast and banded sclerotial blight) and bacterial diseases (xanthomonas oryzae). Meanwhile, it is found that the ear length of a mutant material of the OsPLDRP1 is shorter than that of a wild type, after driving is conducted through a strong promoter ubi, the plant type of an overexpression material of the OsPLDRP1 is looser than that of the wild type, the plant becomes higher, the heading phenotype is early, and the OsPLDRP1 influences normal growth and development of rice while stimulating plant immune response. The invention provides important gene resources and molecular theoretical basis for developing a new variety of broad-spectrum disease-resistant rice.

The invention discloses a cotton GhSAC7 protein coding gene (GhD03G0020, LOC107937826), the coding sequence of the cotton GhSAC7 protein coding gene is 1791 nucleotides, and the protein sequence of the cotton GhSAC7 protein coding gene is 596 amino acids. Protein expression level analysis and phenotype analysis are carried out on a gene editing material of the GhSAC7 gene, and results show that the gene editing material of the GhSAC7 gene has phenotypes of slowing down fiber initiation, reducing fiber density and reducing total fiber amount. Therefore, the GhSAC7 can effectively regulate the development of the cotton fibers and promote the start of the cotton fibers, provides a theoretical basis for the variety improvement of the cotton, and can be used for cultivating new cotton varieties with excellent fiber quality.

The invention relates to the field of leaf sample preparation and analysis, in particular to a sample preparation and phenotype analysis method based on full-leaf expanding plant stomata. The method comprises the following steps: S1, leaf pretreatment: selecting complete wheat leaves, spraying an ethanol solution on the surfaces of the leaves, and repeatedly and gently smearing the leaves so that the leaves are fully soaked in the ethanol solution; s2, a rubbing base is prepared, specifically, a double-faced adhesive tape section is flatly attached to clean lining paper through the adhesive face on one side, the adhesive face on the other side is exposed, the exposed adhesive face is covered with a transparent adhesive tape section with the same length, and a composite base is obtained; s3, sectioning and flaking; s4, curing the imprint; s5, transferring and sample preparation; s6, scanning a slide; and S7, performing phenotype analysis. The method provided by the invention can preprocess the epidermis wax coat of the leaf to eliminate wax and pigment interference, realizes forward and reverse extension of the whole leaf, is simple and efficient in sample preparation, clear and uniform in print, stable and easy to distinguish the sample, can present a clear and complete leaf stomata image, and can efficiently perform stomata analysis and data acquisition in combination with a phenotype analysis algorithm.

This invention relates to methods and systems for isolation of species in semi-permeable capsules and processing of encapsulated species through series of steps and / or reactions. To produce capsules, first aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) droplets are generated using microfluidics system. Then the hydrogel shell layer is hardened by inducing polymerization. As exemplified in this invention to achieve concentric ATPS droplet formation density-matched PEGDA and Dextran polymer solutions can be used. Once a capsule is formed, its composition can be changed by adding new reagents or replacing out old ones (e.g. by resuspending capsules in desired aqueous solution). The hydrogel shell of semi-permeable capsules can be dissolved at selected step during multi-step procedures to release the encapsulated species. This invention exemplifies isolation of individual cells within capsules and using the encapsulated cells for genotypic and phenotypic analysis. This invention also exemplifies use of capsules in multi-step procedures to perform complex biological reactions.