Research article
Measuring differential gene expression by short read sequencing: quantitative comparison to 2-channel gene expression microarrays
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* Corresponding author: Amy A Caudy acaudy@princeton.edu
- † Equal contributors
1 Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA
2 Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA
3 Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA
4 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA
5 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA
BMC Genomics 2009, 10:221 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-10-221
Published: 12 May 2009Abstract
Background
High-throughput cDNA synthesis and sequencing of poly(A)-enriched RNA is rapidly emerging as a technology competing to replace microarrays as a quantitative platform for measuring gene expression.
Results
Consequently, we compared full length cDNA sequencing to 2-channel gene expression microarrays in the context of measuring differential gene expression. Because of its comparable cost to a gene expression microarray, our study focused on the data obtainable from a single lane of an Illumina 1 G sequencer. We compared sequencing data to a highly replicated microarray experiment profiling two divergent strains of S. cerevisiae.
Conclusion
Using a large number of quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays, more than previous studies, we found that neither technology is decisively better at measuring differential gene expression. Further, we report sequencing results from a diploid hybrid of two strains of S. cerevisiae that indicate full length cDNA sequencing can discover heterozygosity and measure quantitative allele-specific expression simultaneously.