Transcriptomics: mRNA and alternative splicing

Transcriptomics has emerged as a powerful approach for biomarker discovery. In the present review, the two main types of high throughput transcriptomic technologies – microarrays and next generation sequencing – that can be used to identify candidate biomarkers are briefly described. Microarrays, the mainstream technology of the last decade, have provided hundreds of valuable datasets in a wide variety of diseases including multiple sclerosis (MS), in which this approach has been used to disentangle different aspects of its complex pathogenesis. RNA-seq, the current next generation sequencing approach, is expected to provide similar power as microarrays but extending their capabilities to aspects up to now more difficult to analyse such as alternative splicing and discovery of novel transcripts.