Diastereoselectivity of 5-Methyluridine Osmylation Is Inverted inside an RNA Chain

General Principles for the Detection of Modified Nucleotides in RNA by Specific Reagents

Epitranscriptomics heavily rely on chemical reagents for the detection, quantification, and localization of modified nucleotides in transcriptomes. Recent years have seen a surge in mapping methods that use innovative and rediscovered organic chemistry in high throughput approaches. While this has brought about a leap of progress in this young field, it has also become clear that the different chemistries feature variegated specificity and selectivity. The associated error rates, e.g., in terms of false positives and false negatives, are in large part inherent to the chemistry employed. This means that even assuming technically perfect execution, the interpretation of mapping results issuing from the application of such chemistries are limited by intrinsic features of chemical reactivity. An important but often ignored fact is that the huge stochiometric excess of unmodified over-modified nucleotides is not inert to any of the reagents employed. Consequently, any reaction aimed at chemical discrimination of modified versus unmodified nucleotides has optimal conditions for selectivity that are ultimately anchored in relative reaction rates, whose ratio imposes intrinsic limits to selectivity. Here chemical reactivities of canonical and modified ribonucleosides are revisited as a basis for an understanding of the limits of selectivity achievable with chemical methods.

Deciphering RNA modifications at base resolution: from chemistry to biology

Nearly 200 distinct chemical modifications of RNAs have been discovered to date. Their analysis via direct methods has been possible in abundant RNA species, such as ribosomal, transfer or viral RNA, since several decades. However, their analysis in less abundant RNAs species, especially cellular messenger RNAs, was rendered possible only recently with the advent of high throughput sequencing techniques. Given the growing biomedical interest of the proteins that write, erase and read RNA modifications, ingenious new methods to enrich and identify RNA modifications at base resolution have been implemented, and more efforts are underway to render them more quantitative. Here, we review several crucial modification-specific (bio)chemical approaches and discuss their advantages and shortcomings for exploring the epitranscriptome.

Thioguanosine Conversion Enables mRNA-Lifetime Evaluation by RNA Sequencing Using Double Metabolic Labeling (TUC-seq DUAL)

Temporal information about cellular RNA populations is essential to understand the functional roles of RNA. We have developed the hydrazine/NH₄ Cl/OsO₄ -based conversion of 6-thioguanosine (6sG) into A', where A' constitutes a 6-hydrazino purine derivative. A' retains the Watson-Crick base-pair mode and is efficiently decoded as adenosine in primer extension assays and in RNA sequencing. Because 6sG is applicable to metabolic labeling of freshly synthesized RNA and because the conversion chemistry is fully compatible with the conversion of the frequently used metabolic label 4-thiouridine (4sU) into C, the combination of both modified nucleosides in dual-labeling setups enables high accuracy measurements of RNA decay. This approach, termed TUC-seq DUAL, uses the two modified nucleosides in subsequent pulses and their simultaneous detection, enabling mRNA-lifetime evaluation with unprecedented precision.

Nanopore device-based fingerprinting of RNA oligos and microRNAs enhanced with an Osmium tag

Protein and solid-state nanopores are used for DNA/RNA sequencing as well as for single molecule analysis. We proposed that selective labeling/tagging may improve base-to-base resolution of nucleic acids via nanopores. We have explored one specific tag, the Osmium tetroxide 2,2'-bipyridine (OsBp), which conjugates to pyrimidines and leaves purines intact. Earlier reports using OsBp-tagged oligodeoxyribonucleotides demonstrated proof-of-principle during unassisted voltage-driven translocation via either alpha-Hemolysin or a solid-state nanopore. Here we extend this work to RNA oligos and a third nanopore by employing the MinION, a commercially available device from Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). Conductance measurements demonstrate that the MinION visibly discriminates oligoriboadenylates with sequence A15PyA15, where Py is an OsBp-tagged pyrimidine. Such resolution rivals traditional chromatography, suggesting that nanopore devices could be exploited for the characterization of RNA oligos and microRNAs enhanced by selective labeling. The data also reveal marked discrimination between a single pyrimidine and two consecutive pyrimidines in OsBp-tagged AnPyAn and AnPyPyAn. This observation leads to the conjecture that the MinION/OsBp platform senses a 2-nucleotide sequence, in contrast to the reported 5-nucleotide sequence with native nucleic acids. Such improvement in sensing, enabled by the presence of OsBp, may enhance base-calling accuracy in enzyme-assisted DNA/RNA sequencing.

Osmium Tag for Post-transcriptionally Modified RNA

5-Methylcytidine (m⁵ C) and 5-methyluridine (m⁵ U) are highly abundant post-transcriptionally modified nucleotides that are observed in various natural RNAs. Such nucleotides were labeled through a chemical approach, as both underwent oxidation at the C5=C6 double bond, leading to the formation of osmium-bipyridine complexes, which could be identified by mass spectrometry. This osmium tag made it possible to distinguished m⁵ C and m⁵ U from their isomers, 2'-O-methylcytidine and 2'-O-methyluridine, respectively. Queuosine and 2-methylthio-N⁶ -isopentenyladenosine in tRNA were also tagged through complex formation.

Detection of nucleic acid modifications by chemical reagents

Nucleic acids, especially RNA, naturally contain a diversity of chemically modified nucleosides. To understand the biological role of these modified nucleosides, nucleic acid scientists need tools to specifically label, detect and enrich modified nucleic acids. These tools comprise a diverse set of chemical reagents which have been established in the early years of nucleic acid research. Recent developments in high-throughput sequencing and mass spectrometry utilize these chemical labeling strategies to efficiently detect and localize modifications in nucleic acids. As a consequence the transcriptome-wide distribution of modified nucleosides, especially 5-methylcytosine and pseudouridine, in all domains of life could be analyzed. With the help of these techniques and the gained knowledge, it becomes possible to understand the functions of modifications and even study their connections to human health and disease. Here, the differential chemical reactivity of modified nucleosides and their canonical counterpart is reviewed and discussed.