SAGE is far more sensitive than EST for detecting low-abundance transcripts.
BACKGROUND
Isolation of low-abundance transcripts expressed in a genome remains a serious challenge in transcriptome studies. The sensitivity of the methods used for analysis has a direct impact on the efficiency of the detection. We compared the EST method and the SAGE method to determine which one is more sensitive and to what extent the sensitivity is great for the detection of low-abundance transcripts.


RESULTS
Using the same low-abundance transcripts detected by both methods as the targeted sequences, we observed that the SAGE method is 26 times more sensitive than the EST method for the detection of low-abundance transcripts.


CONCLUSIONS
The SAGE method is more efficient than the EST method in detecting the low-abundance transcripts.
Sun
Miao
M
Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, 5841 S, Maryland Avenue, MC2115, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. msun@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu
Zhou
Guolin
G
Lee
Sanggyu
S
Chen
Jianjun
J
Shi
Run Zhang
RZ
Wang
San Ming
SM
D020413:3' Untranslated Regions / Q000235:genetics; D030561:Databases, Nucleic Acid; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D015723:Gene Library; D006801:Humans; D014158:Transcription, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*
D020413:3' Untranslated Regions