A video describing RNA-Seq by GEP Virtual TA Christina Ray Santos is now available on the GEP’s YouTube Channel. We start off with a guided navigation to the GEP UCSC Genome Browser, where GEP student annotators can view their gene models, and then take a step back to talk about how it’s obtained, how scientists can use it to analyze transcriptomes and how they vary between species, organisms, or even cells. This leads into the topic of alternative splicing, which results in unique isoforms that can be used for particular biological tasks. Next, a guide to using your RNA-Seq tracks to their full potential in the GEP UCSC Genome Browser, and finally, a brief summary of what we’ve found out about our example gene to show what we can ultimately take away from all this.
The GEP Tools video series is intended to help GEP students use (and troubleshoot) the annotation tools.