Researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have just published two papers in Nature Methods for synthetic DNA and RNA standards (seqins) that can be used as spike-in controls.
Deveson et al: http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmeth.3957.html
DNA Controls
We have developed a set of synthetic DNA standards, termed 'sequins', that emulate human genetic features and constitute qualitative and quantitative spike-in controls for genome sequencing. Sequencing reads derived from sequins align exclusively to an artificial in silico reference chromosome, rather than the human reference genome, which allows them them to be partitioned for parallel analysis.
Hardwick et al: http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmeth.3958.html
RNA Controls
Sequins have an entirely artificial sequence with no homology to natural reference genomes, but they align to gene loci encoded on an artificial in silico chromosome. The combination of multiple sequins across a range of concentrations emulates alternative splicing and differential gene expression, and it provides scaling factors for normalization between samples.
