High-throughput mRNA sequencing (RNA-seq) uses massively parallel sequencing to allow an unbiased analysis of both genome-wide transcription levels and mutation status of a tumor. In the RNA-seq method, complementary DNA (cDNA) is used to generate short sequence reads by immobilizing millions of amplified DNA fragments onto a solid surface and performing the sequence reaction. The resulting sequences are aligned to a reference genome or transcript database to create a comprehensive description of the analyzed transcriptome. This chapter describes a protocol to perform RNA-seq using the Illumina sequencing platform, presents sequencing data quality metrics and outlines a bioinformatic pipeline for sequence alignment, digital gene expression, and mutation discovery.
