text: In the mid 2010s several techniques combined with Next Generation Sequencing were developed that employ the "tag" principle for "digital gene expression profiling" but without the use of the tagging enzyme. The "MACE" approach, (=Massive Analysis of cDNA Ends) generates tags somewhere in the last 1500 bps of a transcript. The technique does not depend on restriction enzymes anymore and thereby circumvents bias that is related to the absence or location of the restriction site within the cDNA. Instead, the cDNA is randomly fragmented and the 3ends are sequenced from the 5 end of the cDNA molecule that carries the poly-A tail. The sequencing length of the tag can be freely chosen. Because of this, the tags can be assembled into contigs and the annotation of the tags can be drastically improved. Therefore, MACE is also use for the analyses of non-model organisms. In addition, the longer contigs can be screened for polymorphisms. As UTRs show a large number of polymorphisms between individuals, the MACE approach can be applied for allele determination, allele specific gene expression profiling and the search for molecular markers for breeding. In addition, the approach allows determining alternative polyadenylation of the transcripts. Because MACE does only require 3’ ends of transcripts, even partly degraded RNA can be analyzed with less degradation dependent bias. The MACE approach uses unique molecular identifiers to allow for identification of PCR bias.