The low abundance of many transcripts has limited the analysis of transcriptome complexity. To gain further insight, Mercer et al. used array-based capture followed by high-throughput RNA sequencing on human fibroblasts, achieving nearly 5,000-fold coverage of the small (~0.8 Mb) portion of the genome analysed. They found novel spliceoforms of both the tumour suppressor gene TP53 and of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), such as HOTAIR. They also identified pervasive, low-level transcription of regions that were considered to be intergenic and could detect transcripts present at less than one molecule per 1,000 cells.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER
Mercer, T. R. et al. Targeted RNA sequencing reveals the deep complexity of the human transcriptome. Nature Biotech. 13 Nov 2011 (doi:10.1038/nbt.2024)
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Burgess, D. Secrets of the deep for transcriptomes. Nat Rev Genet 13, 3 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3147
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3147