Correction of Technology-Related Artifacts in Serial Analysis of Gene Expression

Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) is a powerful technique for measuring global gene expression through sampling of transcript tags. SAGE tag collections or libraries serve as a rich data source for differential gene expression analysis, transcriptome mapping, and gene discovery. Transcriptome mapping and gene discovery are facilitated by extensions of SAGE, e.g., Long SAGE, where the transcript tags are elongated by utilization of a different tagging enzyme. SAGE, as a sequencing-based technique, is prone to errors resulting in artifact SAGE tag sequences and erroneous tag numbers. A methodology to pinpoint and correct tag artifacts is necessary to fully exploit the value of large SAGE libraries.