Table 2.

Methods used for detecting lncRNAs

Method	Principle	Advantages	Disavantage
Northern Blot	- Electrophoresis and detection with specific probe	- Fast, low-tech, cheap - Alternative splicing products can be detected - Both quantitative and qualitative method - High specific	- High risk of sample degradation - Low sensitivity - Only known sequences detected
RT-qPCR	- Transcript amplification and fluorescence signal detection after specific probe hybridization	- Cost-effective - Time-efficient - High sensitivity and specificity, l - Low amount of starting material - Results easy and fast to obtain	- Splicing products no detected - Nonspecific binding - Maximum 4 different mRNAs can be detected simultaneously - Only known sequences detected
Microarrays	- Molecular hybridization to detect the expression levels	Multiple mRNAs can be analyzed in the same experiment, well defined and standardized protocols, relatively low cost	- Detection of known sequences - Non-specific hybridization - No identification of mRNA variants - High variability of low expressed mRNAs
RNA-seq	- Next generation sequence based	- Independency from previous sequence information - High dynamic range - Several isoforms of mRNA can be detected - Low amount of starting material is required	- High cost - Complex analysis of data