Exploring plant transcriptomes using ultra high-throughput sequencing

Ultra high-throughput sequencing (UHTS) technologies offer the potential to interrogate transcriptomes in detail that has traditionally been restricted to single gene surveys. For instance, it is now possible to globally define transcription start sites, polyadenylation signals, alternative splice sites and generate quantitative data on gene transcript accumulation in single tissues or cell types. These technologies are thus paving the way for whole genome transcriptomics and will undoubtedly lead to novel insights into plant development and biotic and abiotic stress responses. However, several challenges exist to making this technology broadly accessible to the plant research community. These include the current need for a computationally intensive analysis of data sets, a lack of standardized alignment and formatting procedures and a relatively small number of analytical software packages to interpret UHTS outputs. In this review we summarize recent findings from UHTS and discuss potential opportunities and challenges for broad adoption of these technologies in the plant science community.