Switcher Stories
Dr. Pamela Green is a professor of plant and soil sciences at the Delaware Biotechnology
Institute at the University of Delaware. She is interested in understanding the post-transcriptional
mechanisms that regulate gene expression, particularly the role small RNA have on the control
of messenger RNA in plant systems. In 2003, Dr. Green teamed up Dr. Blake Meyers, University
of Delaware colleague and bioinformatics expert, to investigate the possible uses for Illumina’s
early-generation Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing (MPSS) technology. Dr. Green says they
quickly realized that this short-read, high-throughput sequencing platform presented an outstanding
solution for discovering and analyzing small RNA on a genome-wide scale. With this novel technology,
Drs. Green and Meyers set out to profile the small RNA component of the transcriptome in the model
plant Arabidopsis thalania.
Dr. Green, an RNA biologist, worked in close consultation with Illumina to develop a method for preparing her small RNA samples for sequencing. Dr. Meyers designed novel data analysis programs to analyze the raw sequence data. Illumina sequencing services generated close to 2.2 million sequences from their flower and seedling samples. With this data, Drs. Green and Meyers were able to carry out the first deep and comprehensive analysis of a small RNA transcriptome in any organism, work that was ultimately published in Science.
Drs. Green and Meyers continue to collaborate closely on a number of projects and remain loyal Illumina Sequencing Services customers. They are currently profiling small RNA expression in more than 33 plant and algae species and are now using data generated by our Genome Analyzers. Dr. Green says, "Both the sequence and the size of small RNAs contain important biological information. The big advantage of the Genome Analyzer, in addition to its greater depth, is that it provides the complete sequence of the small RNAs." Dr. Meyers adds, "We have a long-standing relationship with Illumina and find Illumina’s Genome Analyzer data quality very high. We think of it as the gold standard. Small RNA sequencing, especially from plant systems with their tremendous diversity, is a bigger challenge compared to some applications of DNA sequencing because the libraries are more complicated to construct. We’ve really enjoyed working with Illumina for these challenges in particular."
Dr. Pamela Green
Professor of Plant and Soil Sciences and Professor of Marine Studies
Delaware Biotechnology Institute
Dr. Blake Meyers
Associate Professor of Plant and Soil Sciences
Delaware Biotechnology Institute
Learn more about Dr. Green and Dr. Meyers’ experience with the Genome Analyzer.