SLAM-seq reveals independent contributions of RNA processing and stability to gene expression in African trypanosomes

Our PhD student Vanessa did a great job in developing an efficient metabolic RNA labeling approach in T. brucei. By combining ultra-short metabolic labeling with transient transcriptome sequencing (TT-seq), she was able to confirm the long-standing hypothesis that RNA polymerase II transcription is unregulated in T. brucei. In addition, she established thiol (SH)-linked alkylation for metabolic sequencing of RNA (SLAM-seq) to globally quantify RNA processing rates and half-lives. Her data, combined with scRNA-seq data, indicate that RNA processing and stability independently affect total mRNA levels and contribute to the cell-to-cell heterogeneity variability observed in African trypanosomes.

Luzak V, Osses E, Danese A, Odendaal C, Stricker SH, Haanstra JR, Erhard F, Siegel TN* (2024)
SLAM-seq reveals independent contributions of RNA processing and stability to gene expression in African trypanosomes.
Nucleic Acids Research gkae1203 doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkae1203