Paper alert: Long-read sequencing-based analyses of the adult Drosophila brain transcriptome in physiological and pathological settings

Are you interested in transcriptome complexity, RNA modifications, polyA tail length, or retrotransposons? Are you simply obsessed with mining new datasets? Our new Nanopore-based direct RNA sequencing study in Drosophila (in the context of health and tau pathogenicity) is for you:

Our de novo transcriptome assembly reveals previously missed complexity in the Drosophila genome, including abundant transcripts with retained introns. Transcripts with long polyA tails are enriched for signal transduction and MAPK signaling, while those with short polyA tails are enriched for translation and ATP metabolism.

We find that m6A modification is highly variable across transcripts, with enrichment at the 5'UTR and transcription start sites. Highly m6A-modified transcripts are enriched for immune system processes, while those with lower m6A are associated with homeostatic translation.

We leverage long reads to map source loci for active retrotransposons, with copia elements showing particularly high m6A, then compare all of these transcript features to a fly model of tauopathy. Please check out the paper to see what intrigues you.

Congrats to co-first authors Dr. Paulino Ramirez and Dr. Gabbe Zuniga!