The diverse applications of RNA-seq for functional genomic studies in Aspergillus fumigatus
Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 16, 2026

Targeted RNA Sequencing Assay to Characterize Gene Expression and Genomic Alterations
Published on: August 4, 2016
Antonis Rokas1, John G Gibbons, Xiaofan Zhou
1Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. antonis.rokas@vanderbilt.edu
Abstract:
The deep sequencing of an mRNA population, RNA-seq, is a very successful application of next-generation sequencing technologies (NGSTs). RNA-seq takes advantage of two key NGST features: (1) samples can be mixtures of different DNA pieces, and (2) sequencing provides both qualitative and quantitative information about each DNA piece analyzed. We recently used RNA-seq to study the transcriptome of Aspergillus fumigatus, a deadly human fungal pathogen. Analysis of the RNA-seq data indicates that there are likely tens of unannotated and hundreds of novel genes in the A. fumigatus transcriptome, mostly encoding for small proteins. Inspection of transcriptome-wide variation between two isolates reveals thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms. Finally, comparison of the transcriptome profiles of one isolate in two different growth conditions identified thousands of differentially expressed genes. These results demonstrate the utility and potential of RNA-seq for functional genomics studies in A. fumigatus and other fungal human pathogens.
Related Concept Videos
RNA-seq
Before the discovery of RNA-seq, microarray-based methods and Sanger sequencing were used for transcriptome analysis. However, while microarray-based...
Ribosome Profiling
Applications of ribosome profiling
Ribosome profiling has many applications, including in vivo monitoring of translation inside a particular organ or tissue type and quantifying new protein synthesis levels.
The technique helps...
Applications of Molecular Taxonomy
