NADcapPro Seq and CircNAD –Methods for Accurate Profiling of NAD and Non-Canonical RNA Caps in Eukaryotes

Accurate identification of NAD-capped RNAs is essential for understanding their biological function. Previous transcriptome-wide methods used to profile NAD-capped RNAs contain inherent limitations of having hindered the accurate identification of NAD caps from eukaryotic RNAs. Herein we introduced two novel orthogonal methods to precisely identify NAD-capped RNAs. One is D-SPAAC, a copper-free click-chemistry-based approach, and the second is an intramolecular ligation-based circNAD to resolve implicit limitations of the previous methods, which enabled us to unravel unforeseen features of NAD RNAs in budding yeast. Contrary to previous reports, we find that 1) cellular NAD RNAs can be full-length and polyadenylated transcripts, 2) transcription start sites for NAD-capped and canonical m7G-capped RNAs are different, and 3) NAD caps can be added post-transcriptionally. Moreover, we uncovered a dichotomy of NAD RNAs in translation where NAD RNAs are detected with mitochondrial ribosomes but not cytoplasmic ribosomes indicating their propensity to be translated in mitochondria. Overall design: NADcapPro Seq, a copper-free click-chemistry-based approach to profile NAD capped RNAs in budding yeast