The new role of SAGE in gene discovery

The sequencing of the human genome has led to in silico predictions of far fewer genes than anticipated. Recent studies using serial analysis of gene expression have cast doubt on this finding. One study predicts the presence of many unidentified low abundance transcripts, whereas two others have mapped unique tags to previously unpredicted exons. Genome and transcriptome complexity is thus greater than predicted and many of the missing genes are probably expressed in low copy numbers or only in early embryonic tissues.