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Differential ratio amplicons (Ramp ) for the evaluation of RNA integrity extracted from complex environmental samples.

Fabien Cholet | Umer Z Ijaz | Cindy J Smith
Environmental microbiology | 2019

Reliability and reproducibility of transcriptomics-based studies are dependent on RNA integrity. In microbial ecology, microfluidics-based techniques, such as the Ribosomal Integrity Number (RIN), targeting rRNA are currently the only approaches to evaluate RNA integrity. However, the relationship between rRNA and mRNA integrity is unknown. Here, we present an integrity index, the Ratio Amplicon, Ramp , adapted from human clinical studies, to directly monitor mRNA integrity from complex environmental samples. We show, in a suite of experimental degradations of RNA extracted from sediment, that while the RIN generally reflected the degradation status of RNA the Ramp mapped mRNA degradation better. Furthermore, we examined the effect of degradation on transcript community structure by amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA, amoA and glnA transcripts. We successfully sequenced transcripts for all three targets even from highly-degraded RNA samples. While RNA degradation changed the community structure of the mRNA profiles, no changes were observed for the 16S rRNA transcript profiles. Since both RT-Q-PCR and sequencing results were obtained, even from highly degraded samples, we strongly recommend evaluating RNA integrity prior to downstream processing to ensure meaningful results. For this, both the RIN and Ramp are useful, with the Ramp better evaluating mRNA integrity in this study.

Pubmed ID: 30585386

Research resources used in this publication

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Associated grants

  • Agency: Univeristy of Glasgow, School of Engineering Doctoral Scholarship, International
  • Agency: NERC IRF, International
    Id: NE/L011956/1
  • Agency: Royal Academy of Engineering under the Research Chairs and Senior Research Fellowships scheme, International
    Id: RCSRF1718643

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