What+transcripts+are+found+in+a+human+cell?+-+Genome+Biology

What transcripts are found in a human cell? - Genome Biology

Genome Biology 2000, 1:reports031

doi:10.1186/gb-2000-1-1-reports031

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&ved=0CHoQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgenomebiology.com%2F2000%2F1%2F1%2Freports%2F031&ei=dHEuUf6OOeKCjALb4YD4BQ&usg=AFQjCNFO6J8vQkRE_GScYRikJRk7miIFyg&sig2=-GTaPKmyoOwIpsiAvY0fUQ

q An alternative to the much-hyped cDNA microarray technology for this purpose is ... The average number of different but related transcripts corresponding to each ... More than 43,000 transcripts were expressed in a single cell type ... 500 copies per cell made up 18% of the cellular mRNA mass (Figure 1a)

This short document mostly compares the EST technique to the SAGE technique. Some of the information may be outdated since they estimated the number of human genes in the genome to be about 84,000. The paper looks like it has some very useful information about RNA though.

large number of transcripts that are identified as being present at fewer than five copies per cell. These rare transcripts comprise 25% of cellular mRNA by mass but 94% of unique transcripts

this paper has some good diagrams showing how most of the unique transcripts occur at lower than 5 copies per cell

More than 43,000 transcripts were expressed in a single cell type <- I don't know if this is the number of unique transcripts or total transcripts

with expression levels ranging from 0.3 to 9,417 copies of the transcript per cell.