An automated method for efficient, accurate and reproducible construction of RNA-seq libraries

BACKGROUND: Integration of RNA-seq expression data with knowledge on chromatin accessibility, histone modifications, DNA methylation, and transcription factor binding has been instrumental for the unveiling of cell-specific local and long-range regulatory patterns, facilitating further investigation on the underlying rules of transcription regulation at an individual and allele-specific level. However, full genome transcriptome characterization has been partially limited by the complexity and increased time-requirements of available RNA-seq library construction protocols. FINDINGS: Use of the SX-8G IP-Star® Compact System significantly reduces the hands-on time for RNA-seq library synthesis, adenylation, and adaptor ligation providing with high quality RNA-seq libraries tailored for Illumina high-throughput next-generation sequencing. Generated data exhibits high technical reproducibility compared to data from RNA-seq libraries synthesized manually for the same samples. Obtained results are consistent regardless the researcher, day of the experiment, and experimental run. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the SX-8G IP-Star® Compact System proves an efficient, fast and reliable tool for the construction of next-generation RNA-seq libraries especially for trancriptome-based annotation of larger genomes.