title: SAGE is far more sensitive than EST for detecting low-abundance transcripts.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, 5841 S, Maryland Avenue, MC2115, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. msun@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu
authors.forename: Miao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Guolin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Sanggyu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jianjun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Run Zhang
authors.initials: RZ
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: San Ming
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: 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*
chemical_list: D020413:3' Untranslated Regions