The development of new technologies, such as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), and methods to improve the capabilities of this technology has been a revolution for the study of genomics and transcriptomics. NGS opens doors for progress in a variety of biological fields, including biomedical research. NGS allows the sequencing of the whole genome and transcriptome in a massive scale, accessible price, and it is not limited to previous knowledge. Genome sequencing has been applied for the development of a variety of research areas such as, characterization of ancient genomes [1], sequencing of different species [2], risk assessment of genetic diseases [3], molecular diagnosis of various diseases including cancer [4,5] among other, leading to a road for personalized medicine. With NGS, detailed analyses of the transcriptome have been made possible. Detailed information about not only messenger RNA, but also ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, small RNAs are now accessible. Due to the fact that this technology needs no previous knowledge about the systems being studied compared to other high-throughput technologies (e.g. oligo-microarrays), NGS allows for novel transcripts to be discovered. Thus, alternative splicing, novel microRNAs, and non-coding regions which produce long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) can now be explored. Non-coding regions of the genome were originally described as junk, or a by-product of sloppy transcriptional machinery. It was not until the ENCODE project that these non-coding regions were shown to be functional parts of the genome. Indeed, they have been shown to have important roles in gene regulation [6].

Citation: Santucci-Pereira J, Barton M, Russo J (2014) Use of Next Generation Sequencing in the Identification of Long Non-Coding RNAs as Potential Players in Breast Cancer Prevention. Transcriptomics 2:104. doi: 10.4172/2329-8936.1000104

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