Studying bacterial transcriptomes using RNA-seq

• Published in: Current opinion in microbiology Vol. 13; no. 5; pp. 619 - 624
• Main Authors: Croucher, Nicholas J, Thomson, Nicholas R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-10-2010; Elsevier; Current Biology
• Subjects: Bacteria; Bacteriology; Biological and medical sciences; DNA microarrays; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling; Genes, Bacterial; Genomes; Landscape; Microbiology; Miscellaneous; non-coding RNA; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; Pathology; Reviews; RNA, Bacterial - analysis; RNA, Bacterial - genetics; Sequence Analysis, RNA - methods; Transcription; Bacteria; Review; High throughput sequencing; Transcriptome
• ISSN: 1369-5274; 1879-0364
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mib.2010.09.009

Genome-wide studies of bacterial gene expression are shifting from microarray technology to second generation sequencing platforms. RNA-seq has a number of advantages over hybridization-based techniques, such as annotation-independent detection of transcription, improved sensitivity and increased dynamic range. Early studies have uncovered a wealth of novel coding sequences and non-coding RNA, and are revealing a transcriptional landscape that increasingly mirrors that of eukaryotes. Already basic RNA-seq protocols have been improved and adapted to looking at particular aspects of RNA biology, often with an emphasis on non-coding RNAs, and further refinements to current techniques will improve our understanding of gene expression, and genome content, in the future.