Prospects for the use of third generation sequencers for quantitative profiling of transcriptome

Transcriptome profiling is widely employed to analyze transcriptome dynamics when studying various biological processes at the cell and tissue levels. Unlike the second generation sequencers, which sequence relatively short fragments of nucleic acids, the third generation DNA/RNA sequencers developed by biotechnology companies “PacBio” and “Oxford Nanopore Technologies” allow one to sequence transcripts as single molecules and may be considered as potential molecular counters capable to measure the number of copies of each transcript with high throughput, sensitivity, and specificity. In the present review, the features of single molecule sequencing technologies offered by “PacBio” and “Oxford Nanopore Technologies” are considered alongside with their utility for transcriptome analysis, including the analysis of transcript isoforms. The prospects and limitations of the single molecule sequencing technology in application to quantitative transcriptome profiling are also discussed.