STAR (Spliced Transcripts Alignment to a Reference) aims to achieve accurate alignment of high-throughput RNA-seq data. STAR is based on a previously undescribed RNA-seq alignment algorithm that uses sequential maximum mappable seed search in uncompressed suffix arrays followed by seed clustering and stitching procedure. STAR outperforms other aligners by a factor of >50 in mapping speed, aligning to the human genome 550 million 2 x 76 bp paired-end reads per hour on a modest 12-core server, while at the same time improving alignment sensitivity and precision WWW: https://github.com/alexdobin/STAR