RNA-Seq, short for RNA sequencing, is a sequencing technique that uses next-generation sequencing to reveal the presence and quantity of RNA in a biological sample, providing an aggregated snapshot of the cells dynamic pool of RNAs, also known as the transcriptome. Here are some key points about RNA-Seq:
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Technique: RNA-Seq uses next-generation sequencing (NGS) to analyze the expression across the transcriptome, enabling scientists to detect known or novel features and quantify gene expression.
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Applications: RNA-Seq facilitates the ability to look at alternative gene spliced transcripts, post-transcriptional modifications, gene fusion, mutations/SNPs, and changes in gene expression over time, or differences in gene expression in different groups or treatments.
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Advantages: It provides a more detailed and quantitative view of gene expression, alternative splicing, and allele-specific expression. It is also quantitative, allowing for the determination of RNA expression levels more accurately than microarrays.
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Types of RNA: In addition to mRNA transcripts, RNA-Seq can look at different populations of RNA, including total RNA, small RNA such as miRNA, tRNA, and ribosomal profiling.
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Evolution: RNA-Seq was first developed in the mid-2000s with the advent of next-generation sequencing technology and has since become a widely used and accepted method for quantifying gene expression.
RNA-Seq has revolutionized the study of the transcriptome, providing a highly sensitive and accurate tool for measuring expression across the transcriptome and enabling scientists to detect both known and novel features in a single assay. It has numerous applications in understanding transcriptomic dynamics during development, normal physiological changes, and in the analysis of biomedical samples, allowing robust comparison between diseased and normal tissues.
