Development and application of transcriptomics technologies in plant science

Abstract

Over the past decade, bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has become an indispensable tool in molecular biology, and have made the novel development, with two innovative methodologies being developed, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology and spatial transcriptome (ST) technology. The scRNA-seq technology allows researchers to analyze gene expression in individual cells, providing more detailed information relative to the past technologies. Meanwhile, ST technology overcomes the limitations of single-cell sequencing in terms of loss of spatial information, enabling scientists to better understand the spatial distribution of gene expression within tissues. These advancements of transcriptomics technologies revolutionize the field of genomics and have been widely used in disease diagnosis and medicine. However, they are less utilized in plant research. This review describes the development, advantage and limitations of three transcriptomics technologies, and presents their applications in plant sciences.