NanoString nCounter Technology: High-Throughput RNA Validation

Abstract

NanoString nCounter is a multiplex nucleic acid hybridization technology that enables reliable and reproducible assessment of the expression of up to 800 genes or 228 gene fusions in 12 samples in a single assay. The technique works well with a variety of starting materials from fresh or formalin-fixed tissues, cell lysates or biological fluid samples. As low as 1 ng RNA input per sample is needed. In addition to gene expression, copy number variation, single nucleotide variation and chimeric RNAs can be analyzed. In this chapter, we discuss the design, setup, and performance of a NanoString-based RNA assay for gene expression or fusion transcript assessment.