MS-based analysis of enzymatic methylation of an in vitro-transcribed lncRNA

The field of epitranscriptomics is growing in importance, with chemical modification of RNA being associated with a wide variety of biological phenomena. Mass spectrometry (MS) enables the identification of modified RNA residues within their sequence contexts, by using analogous approaches to shotgun proteomics. We have developed a free and open-source database search engine for RNA MS data, called NucleicAcidSearchEngine (NASE), as part of the OpenMS software framework. NASE allows the reliable identification of (modified) RNA sequences from LC-MS/MS data in a high-throughput fashion. For this validation dataset, we prepared two samples of an in vitro-transcribed yeast lncRNA (NME1, 340 nt long), one of which was treated with an RNA methyltransferase (NCL1) catalyzing the 5-methylcytidine (m5C) modification. These samples were subsequently digested with an RNA endonuclease (RNase) to generate oligonucleotide sequences of a length amenable to mass spectrometry.