text: RNA-Seq captures DNA variation, including single nucleotide variants, small insertions/deletions. and structural variation. Variant calling in RNA-Seq is similar to DNA variant calling and often employs the same tools (including SAMtools mpileup and GATK HaplotypeCaller) with adjustments to account for splicing. One unique dimension for RNA variants is allele-specific expression (ASE): the variants from only one haplotype might be preferentially expressed due to regulatory effects including imprinting and expression quantitative trait loci, and noncoding rare variants. Limitations of RNA variant identification include that it only reflects expressed regions (in humans, <5% of the genome), could be subject to biases introduced by data processing (e.g., de novo transcriptome assemblies underestimate heterozygosity), and has lower quality when compared to direct DNA sequencing.