RNA sequencing reveals two major classes of gene expression levels in metazoan cells

The expression level of a gene is often used as a proxy for determining whether the protein or RNA product is functional in a cell or tissue. Therefore, it is of fundamental importance to understand the global distribution of gene expression levels, and to be able to interpret it mechanistically and...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hebenstreit, Daniel (Author), Fang, Miaoqing (Contributor), Charoensawan, Varodom (Author), van Oudenaarden, Alexander (Contributor), Teichmann, Sarah A. (Author)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group, 2012-07-11T12:45:05Z.
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Summary:The expression level of a gene is often used as a proxy for determining whether the protein or RNA product is functional in a cell or tissue. Therefore, it is of fundamental importance to understand the global distribution of gene expression levels, and to be able to interpret it mechanistically and functionally. Here we use RNA sequencing of mouse Th2 cells, coupled with a range of other techniques, to show that all genes can be separated, based on their expression abundance, into two distinct groups: one group comprising of lowly expressed and putatively non-functional mRNAs, and the other of highly expressed mRNAs with active chromatin marks at their promoters.