Advantages and limitations of SAGE and DNA chip technology for analysis of difference in mRNA expression in different tissues
| Advantages | Limitations | |
| SAGE | • Frequency of many transcripts can be determined • Efficient • Can detect novel genes • Can find low abundance transcripts. |
• Largely relies on the availability of sequences representative of genes in the particular target species, usually as expressed sequence tags (ESTs) • A lesser proportion of murine genes are available |
| DNA chip |
• Rapid methods of sample analysis • Can handle a lot of samples • Polymorphism discovery and its correlation with diseases/drug effects. |
• Databases usually limited to known genes • Limited number of sequences that can be loaded onto individual chips (around 10 000 at present) • Few chips are available representing different species and difference groups of clones or genes |
SAGE = serial analysis of gene expression. ESTs = expressed sequence tags.