Staphylococcus aureus's Oxford Nanopore Sequencing discovers Non Contiguous Operons

Non-contiguous operons are transcriptional units consisting of a group of genes that are transcribed together despite being separated by a gene or genes that are transcribed in the opposite direction. Conventional RNA sequencing tools (such as Illumina) are not the best ones to study this specific architecture due to its limitation in transcripts length. With ONT technology, we are able to see full-length transcripts which englobe whole non contiguous operons, proving their existence.

不连续操纵子（non-contiguous operons）是一类转录单元，由一组共转录基因构成，尽管这些基因彼此间被一个或多个反向转录的基因所分隔。常规RNA测序工具（例如Illumina）受限于转录本长度，并非研究这一特殊结构的最优选择。借助ONT测序技术，我们能够获取覆盖完整不连续操纵子的全长转录本，从而证实了这类结构的存在。