text: MPSS allows mRNA transcripts to be identified through the generation of a 17–20 bp (base pair) signature sequence adjacent to the 3-end of the 3-most site of the designated restriction enzyme (commonly Sau3A or DpnII). Each signature sequence is cloned onto one of a million microbeads. The technique ensures that only one type of DNA sequence is on a microbead. So if there are 50 copies of a specific transcript in the biological sample, these transcripts will be captured onto 50 different microbeads, each bead holding roughly 100,000 amplified copies of the specific signature sequence. The microbeads are then arrayed in a flow cell for sequencing and quantification. The sequence signatures are deciphered by the parallel identification of four bases by hybridization to fluorescently labeled encoders (Figure 5). Each of the encoders has a unique label which is detected after hybridization by taking an image of the microbead array. The next step is to cleave and remove that set of four bases and reveal the next four bases for a new round of hybridization to encoders and image acquisition. The raw output is a list of 17–20 bp signature sequences, that can be annotated to the human genome for gene identification.