A new open-access article, published online today (November 12, 2015) in the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles (JEV), describes the development of a one-touch, integrated small RNA analysis pipeline (iSRAP) research tool that is composed of widely used tools for rapid profiling of small RNAs. The authors say that their performance test of the new iSRAP tool, using publicly and in-house available data sets, demosntrates its ability at comprehensive profiling of small RNAs of various classes, and at analysis of differentially expressed small RNAs. They further assert the the iSRAP tool offers comprehensive analysis of small RNA sequencing data that leverage informed decisions on the downstream analyses of small RNA studies, including those of extracellular vesicles (EVs) such as exosomes. In their article summary, the authors state the new iSRAP tool “provides a flexible and integrated environment for small RNA expression analysis using a single command. The flexible and powerful features of iSRAP enable a comprehensive analysis of small RNAs, which covers from quality assessment of input data to differential expression analysis and visualization of results with the ease of use. iSRAP can potentially serve as a platform for rapid analysis of transcriptomic data so that a better-informed decision can be made on the downstream analyses.” In the background for their report, the authors note that “small non-coding RNAs have been significantly recognized as the key modulators in many biological processes, and are emerging as promising biomarkers for several diseases.” They say that “these RNA species are transcribed in cells and can be packaged in extracellular vesicles, which are small vesicles released from many biotypes, and are involved in intercellular communication.”
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