US Patent 7361465 Methods and compositions for tailing and amplifying RNA

The present invention provides methods and compositions that enable tagging and amplification of targeted RNA molecules. A targeted RNA molecule is any non-polyadenylated RNA molecule including, for example, miRNA, siRNA, rRNA, tRNA, synthetic RNA, or non-polyadenylated mRNA such as mRNA from bacteria. In certain aspects, the invention provides methods and compositions for the genome-wide expression analysis of bacterial genes. Significantly, the methods enable genome-wide expression analysis in circumstances where bacterial numbers were previously too low to purify adequate amounts of RNA for DNA microarray analysis or other applications. Such methods are particularly useful for the study of bacterial gene expression during host-cell infection. The invention also provides kits for tagging and amplifying targeted RNA molecules.