Chemical approaches to RNA enrichment and sequencing

The conception of novel chemical and biological strategies to specifically tag biomolecules is at the core of translational science. Our lab strives to bridge concepts from synthetic chemistry and molecular biology to expand the toolbox to study biological systems. We are particularly interested in developing reagents and technologies to track, manipulate, separate, and interrogate nucleic acids. We focus our efforts on innovative methodologies for equipping nucleic acids with detectable labels and on novel reagents for enriching and sequencing of nucleic acids. Among our current projects is the use of chemo-enzymatic approaches to deploy 5’-modified cap structures to RNA native sequences. We have employed this approach to identify full-length RNA isoforms using nanopore sequencing and to simultaneously detect miRNAs and their target gene transcripts. We are also eager to combine chemical derivatization and reverse transcription for mapping modified or damaged nucleobases in RNA.

 

Chemo-enzymatic approach used for equipping an RNA with a modified cap to facilitate full-length isoform identification by nanopore sequencing.