Research highlight
RNA-Seq and find: entering the RNA deep field
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* Corresponding author: Lior Pachter lpachter@math.berkeley.edu
1 Department of Computer Science, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
2 Departments of Mathematics and Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Genome Medicine 2011, 3:74 doi:10.1186/gm290
Published: 22 November 2011Abstract
Initial high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) experiments have revealed a complex and dynamic transcriptome, but because it samples transcripts in proportion to their abundances, assessing the extent and nature of low-level transcription using this technique has been difficult. A new assay, RNA CaptureSeq, addresses this limitation of RNA-Seq by enriching for low-level transcripts with cDNA tiling arrays prior to high-throughput sequencing. This approach reveals a plethora of transcripts that have been previously dismissed as 'noise', and hints at single-cell transcription fingerprints that may be crucial in defining cellular function in normal and disease states.