Using direct RNA nanopore sequencing to deconvolute viral transcriptomes

The genomes of DNA viruses encode deceptively complex transcriptomes evolved to maximize coding potential within the confines of a relatively small genome. Defining the full range of viral RNAs produced during an infection is key to understanding the viral replication cycle and its interactions with the host cell. Traditional short‐read (Illumina) sequencing approaches are problematic in this setting due to the difficulty of assigning short reads to individual RNAs in regions of transcript overlap and to the biases introduced by the required recoding and amplification steps. Additionally, different methodologies may be required to analyze the 5′ and 3′ ends of RNAs, which increases both cost and effort.

The advent of long‐read nanopore sequencing simplifies this approach by providing a single assay that captures and sequences full length RNAs, either in cDNA or native RNA form. The latter is particularly appealing as it reduces known recoding biases whilst allowing more advanced analyses such as estimation of poly(A) tail length and the detection of RNA modifications including N⁶‐methyladenosine.

Using herpes simplex virus (HSV)‐infected primary fibroblasts as a template, we provide a step‐by‐step guide to the production of direct RNA sequencing libraries suitable for sequencing using Oxford Nanopore Technologies platforms and provide a simple computational approach to deriving a high‐quality annotation of the HSV transcriptome from the resulting sequencing data.