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Analysis of the transcriptional complexity of Arabidopsis thaliana by massively parallel signature sequencing

Nature Biotechnology volume 22, pages 1006–1011 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Large-scale sequencing of short mRNA-derived tags can establish the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of a complex transcriptome. We sequenced 12,304,362 tags from five diverse libraries of Arabidopsis thaliana using massively parallel signature sequencing (MPSS). A total of 48,572 distinct signatures, each representing a different transcript, were expressed at significant levels. These signatures were compared to the annotation of the A. thaliana genomic sequence; in the five libraries, this comparison yielded between 17,353 and 18,361 genes with sense expression, and between 5,487 and 8,729 genes with antisense expression. An additional 6,691 MPSS signatures mapped to unannotated regions of the genome. Expression was demonstrated for 1,168 genes for which expression data were previously unknown. Alternative polyadenylation was observed for more than 25% of A. thaliana genes transcribed in these libraries. The MPSS expression data suggest that the A. thaliana transcriptome is complex and contains many as-yet uncharacterized variants of normal coding transcripts.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Larry Tindell, Steve Edberg and Tanya Berardini for excellent technical assistance, and Hajime Sakai and Pam Green for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research award #0110528 (B.C.M.).

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Author notes

  1. Marta Matvienko

    Present address: Allometra, LLC, 2604 Kalamazoo Place, Davis, California, 95616, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Delaware Biotechnology Institute, 15 Innovation Way, University of Delaware, Newark, 19714, Delaware, USA

    Blake C Meyers, Tam H Vu, Shivakundan Singh Tej, Hassan Ghazal, Vikas Agrawal & Jianchang Ning

  2. Department of Vegetable Crops, 148 Asmundson Hall, University of California, Davis, 95616, California, USA

    Marta Matvienko

  3. Lynx Therapeutics, Inc., 25861 Industrial Blvd., Hayward, 94545, California, USA

    Christian D Haudenschild

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  1. Blake C Meyers
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Blake C Meyers.

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Competing interests

C.D.H. is an empoyee of Lynx Therapeutics, Inc., which is the company that produces the MPSS data. Our paper describes the use of these data for the analysis of transcription in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

Duplicated genomic signatures and 17-base MPSS data from five libraries.

Supplementary Table 2

Genes and alternative transcripts detected by MPSS signatures for all five libraries.

Supplementary Table 3

Comparison of MPSS and WGA Arabidopsis expression data.

Supplementary Table 4

Most highly expressed transcripts in the five libraries.

Supplementary Table 5

Identifiers and abundances of tissue-specific and constant genes.

Supplementary Table 6

Overlap in signatures comprising each library.

Supplementary Table 7

Signatures with distinct patterns of overlap among the five libraries.

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Meyers, B., Vu, T., Tej, S. et al. Analysis of the transcriptional complexity of Arabidopsis thaliana by massively parallel signature sequencing. Nat Biotechnol 22, 1006–1011 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt992

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