NOseq: amplicon sequencing evaluation method for RNA m6A sites after chemical deamination.

Methods for the detection of m6A by RNA-Seq technologies are increasingly sought after. We here present NOseq, a method to detect m6A residues in defined amplicons by virtue of their resistance to chemical deamination, effected by nitrous acid. Partial deamination in NOseq affects all exocyclic amino groups present in nucleobases and thus also changes sequence information.

Absolute Quantification of Noncoding RNA by Microscale Thermophoresis.

Accurate quantification of the copy numbers of noncoding RNA has recently emerged as an urgent problem, with impact on fields such as RNA modification research, tissue differentiation, and others. Herein, we present a hybridization-based approach that uses microscale thermophoresis (MST) as a very fast and highly precise readout to quantify, for example, single tRNA species with a turnaround time of about one hour. We developed MST to quantify the effect of tRNA toxins and of heat stress and RNA modification on single tRNA species.

Determination of enrichment factors for modified RNA in MeRIP experiments.

In the growing field of RNA modification, precipitation techniques using antibodies play an important role. However, little is known about their specificities and protocols are missing to assess their effectiveness. Here we present a method to assess enrichment factors after MeRIP-type pulldown experiments, here exemplified with a commercial antibody against N6-methyladenosine (mA).

Effects of oxygenation on the intercalation of 1,10-phenanthroline-5,6/4,7-dione between DNA base pairs: a computational study.

The effects of oxygen in positions 4,7 and 5,6 of phenanthroline when this ligand intercalates between guanine-cytosine and adenine-thymine DNA base pairs (GC/CG and AT/TA) have been studied at the M06-2X/6-31+G(d,p) level of calculation. We focused on the changes in the structure, stabilization and energy contributions in the analysis of the interaction. The obtained trends in stabilization are explained by a model including repulsive Pauli (ΔE) contributions, and attractive dispersion (ΔE), orbital (ΔE) and electrostatic (ΔE) contributions to energy.