Keeping up with the next generation: massively parallel sequencing in clinical diagnostics.

The speed, accuracy, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of DNA sequencing have been improving continuously since the initial derivation of the technique in the mid-1970s. With the advent of massively parallel sequencing technologies, DNA sequencing costs have been dramatically reduced. No longer is it unthinkable to sequence hundreds or even thousands of genes in a single individual with a suspected genetic disease or complex disease predisposition.

The TAGteam DNA motif controls the timing of Drosophila pre-blastoderm transcription.

The Drosophila sex-determination switch gene Sex-lethal (Sxl) and the X-chromosome signal element genes (XSEs) that induce the female-specific expression of Sxl are transcribed extremely early in development when most of the genome of this organism is still silent. The DNA sequence CAGGTAG had been implicated in this pre-cellular blastoderm activation of sex-determination genes. A genome-wide computational search, reported here, suggested that CAGGTAG is not specific to early sex-determination genes, since it is over-represented upstream of most genes that are transcribed pre-cellular blastoderm, not just those involved in sex determination.