xPore: Detection of differential RNA modifications from direct RNA sequencing

Ploy Pratanwanich from the Genome Institute of Singapore discusses xPORE a new approach to detect RNA modifications from direct RNA sequencing. RNA modifications can occur anywhere on the RNA molecule on any of the nucleotides, and associated with many biological functions such as splicing, stability, translation, and disease.

One of the most common modifications is the m6a modification currently detected by CLIP based methods, utilising antibodies to detect the modification at a single base resolution. However, this method requires downstream processing and cannot detect modifications directly from RNA.

xPore uses direct RNA sequencing reads of native and modified RNA to detect differential RNA modifications, bimodal distribution graphical models and estimated modification rates to determine the actual RNA modification present.