Project description:The discovery of small open reading frames (smORFs) encoding for polypeptides (SEPs; <100aa) highlights that the coding capacity of the genomes has been underestimated. Most ORF-finding algorithms have historically set a minimum threshold length of 100 aa. As consequence, some transcripts encoding for SEPs, were erroneously discarded or classified as non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). With this experiments we try to experimentally assess the existence and complexity of these small proteins. The experimental design includes: After growing each Mycoplasma for 6h at 37°C, cells were washed twice with PBS and lysed with 700 µl of Qiazol buffer. Then, samples were lysed with 700 µl of Qiazol buffer. RNA extractions were performed by using the miRNeasy mini Kit (Qiagen) following the instructions of the manufacturer. Libraries for RNA-seq were prepared following directional RNA-seq library preparation and sequencing. Briefly, 1 µg of total RNA was fragmented to ~100-150 nt using NEB Next Magnesium RNA Fragmentation Module (ref. E6150S, NEB). Treatments with Antarctic phosphatase (ref. M0289S, NEB) and PNK (ref. M0201S, NEB) were performed in order to make the 5’ and 3’ ends of the RNA available for adapter ligation. Samples were further processed using the TruSeq small RNA Sample Prep Kit (ref. RS-200-0012, Illumina) according to the manufacturer's protocol. In summary, 3’ adapters and subsequently 5’ adapters were ligated to the RNA. cDNA was synthesized using reverse transcriptase (SuperScript II, ref. 18064-014, Invitrogen) and a specific primer (RNA RT Primer) complementary to the 3’ RNA adapter. cDNA was further amplified by PCR using indexed adapters supplied in the kit. Finally, size selection of the libraries was performed using 6% Novex® TBE Gels (ref. EC6265BOX, Life Technologies). Fragments with insert sizes of 100 to 130 bp were cut from the gel, and cDNA was precipitated and eluted in 10 µl of elution buffer. Double-stranded templates were cluster amplified and sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq 2000.
