Isoform discovery by targeted cloning, 'deep-well' pooling and parallel sequencing

Abstract
The complete set of coding sequences, including all splice isoforms, is not known for any metazoan organism. Combination of a normalized pooling scheme and a new assembly algorithm with 454 sequencing yields a methodological pipeline for isoform discovery. The validated pipeline may now be applied genome-wide. Describing the 'ORFeome' of an organism, including all major isoforms, is essential for a system-level understanding of any species; however, conventional cloning and sequencing approaches are prohibitively costly and labor-intensive. We describe a potentially genome-wide methodology for efficiently capturing new coding isoforms using reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR recombinational cloning, 'deep-well' pooling and a next-generation sequencing platform. This ORFeome discovery pipeline will be applicable to any eukaryotic species with a sequenced genome.