RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Computational discovery of hidden breaks in 28S ribosomal RNAs across eukaryotes and consequences for RNA Integrity Numbers
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 773226
DO 10.1101/773226
A1 Paschalis Natsidis
A1 Philipp H. Schiffer
A1 Irepan Salvador-Martínez
A1 Maximilian J. Telford
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/10/18/773226.abstract
AB In some eukaryotes, a ‘hidden break’ has been described in which the 28S ribosomal RNA molecule is cleaved into two subparts. The break is common in protostome animals (arthropods, molluscs, annelids etc.) but a break has also been reported in some vertebrates and non-metazoan eukaryotes. We present a new computational approach to determine the presence of the hidden break in 28S rRNAs using mapping of RNA-Seq data. We find a homologous break is present across protostomes although has been lost in a small number of taxa. We show that rare breaks in vertebrate 28S rRNAs are not homologous to the protostome break. A break is found in just 4 out of 331 species of non-animal eukaryotes studied and three of these are located in the same position as the protostome break suggesting a striking instance of convergent evolution. RNA Integrity Numbers (RIN) rely on intact 28s rRNA and will be consistently underestimated in the great majority of animal species with a break.