Innovation

Preserving spatial information in gene expression analyses is key for interpreting the single-cell tissue context (and even subcellular environments) of RNAs to achieve a more complete understanding of the underlying physiology. This Innovation article describes the emerging technologies of and biological insights from spatially resolved transcriptomics technologies, and how they set the stage for comprehensive investigations using complementary omic approaches.

Ribosome profiling is a recently developed technique that uses deep sequencing to study translationin vivo. This approach has provided new insights into the identities and amounts of proteins produced by cells, as well as into the mechanism of protein synthesis itself.

Constructs containing artificial microRNA target sites have the potential to improve a range of therapeutic strategies that are based on gene delivery or viruses. The same technology can be used for experimental purposes, in animal transgenics and to study the functions of microRNAs.

The development of high-throughput DNA sequencing methods provides a new method for mapping and quantifying transcriptomes — RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). This article explains how RNA-Seq works, the challenges it faces and how it is changing our view of eukaryotic transcriptomes.

Non-invasive techniques for prenatal diagnosis are extremely advantageous in terms of both safety and cost. The discovery of fetal nucleic acids in the maternal plasma has led to the development of many non-invasive tests.

Transformation-associated recombination (TAR) cloning usesin vivorecombination in yeast to isolate large chromosomal segments from complex genomes. Although the principles of TAR cloning date back to the 1990s, recent modifications have opened up promising new applications of this technology.