RNA-seq: Dynamic Changes in the Transcriptome of Fission Yeast

Source: Wilhelm et al (2008). Dynamic repertoire of a eukaryotic transcriptome surveyed at single-nucleotide resolution. Nature 453:1239-1243.

The authors of this paper employ massive RNA-seq strategies to extract transcriptome data from S. pombe in several conditions (i.e. proliferation, stress, meiosis and etc). First they mke the case for the sensitivity of RNA-seq in finding the expressed regions that do not show up in tiling array hybridizations. Their first observation is that a major proportion of the genome, although to various extents, is expressed. They have subsequently identified ~80 new genes with detectable transcripts. These transcripts, however, are degraded before being exported from the nucleus; thus, highlighting the role of post-transcriptional degraders and regulators. This paper includes many details about the detectable regions and the dynamics of splicing that I didn't mention. If you're working on fission yeast, I strongly suggest this paper.