SLIC-CAGE (Super-Low Input Carrier-CAGE) development: comparison with Saccharomyces cerevisiae nAnTi-CAGE and nanoCAGE libraries and validation of SLIC-CAGE on Mus musculus total RNA. SLIC-CAGE (Super-Low Input Carrier-CAGE) development: comparison with Saccharomyces cerevisiae nAnTi-CAGE and nanoCAGE libraries and validation of SLIC-CAGE on Mus musculus total RNA

We developed SLIC-CAGE (Super-Low Input Carrier-CAGE) approach to capture 5'end of RNA polymerase II transcripts from as little as 5-10 ng of total RNA. The dramatic increase in sensitivity compared to existing CAGE methods is achieved by specially designed, selectively degradable carrier RNA. We tested SLIC-CAGE on Saccharomyces cerevisiae (BY4741 strain) and produced libraries from 1-100 ng of total cellular RNA. We also produced S. cerevisiae nAnT-iCAGE libraries as the current gold-standard CAGE libraries using the recommended 5 micrograms of total cellular RNA to assess the quality of SLIC-CAGE libraries produces with up to 1000-fold less material. We provide a direct comparison between SLIC-CAGE and the latest nanoCAGE protocol (libraries created using S. cerevisiae total RNA) and show that SLIC-CAGE produces unbiased libraries of higher complexity and quality than nanoCAGE. Finally, we provide SLIC-CAGE libraries on mouse embryonic stem cells (E14) using 5-100 ng of total cellular RNA as starting material.