Prime-seq, efficient and powerful bulk RNA sequencing
Aleksandar Janjic, Lucas E. Wange, Johannes Bagnoli, Johanna Geuder, Phong Nguyen, Daniel Richter, Beate Vieth, Binje Vick, Irmela Jeremias, Christoph Ziegenhain, Ines Hellmann, Wolfgang Enard
Abstract
Cost-efficient library generation by early barcoding has been central in propelling single-cell RNA sequencing. Here, we optimize and validate prime-seq, an early barcoding bulk RNA-seq method. We show that it performs equivalently to TruSeq, a standard bulk RNA-seq method, but is fourfold more cost-efficient due to almost 50-fold cheaper library costs. We also validate a direct RNA isolation step, show that intronic reads are derived from RNA, and compare cost-efficiencies of available protocols. We conclude that prime-seq is currently one of the best options to set up an early barcoding bulk RNA-seq protocol from which many labs would profit.