TagSeqTools: a flexible and comprehensive analysis pipeline for NAD tagSeq data

Abstract

NAD tagSeq has recently been developed for the identification and characterization of NAD+-capped RNAs (NAD-RNAs). This method adopts a strategy of chemo-enzymatic reactions to label the NAD-RNAs with a synthetic RNA tag before subjecting to the Oxford Nanopore direct RNA sequencing. A computational tool designed for analyzing the sequencing data of tagged RNA will facilitate the broader application of this method. Hence, we introduce TagSeqTools as a flexible, general pipeline for the identification and quantification of tagged RNAs (i.e., NAD+-capped RNAs) using long-read transcriptome sequencing data generated by NAD tagSeq method. TagSeqTools comprises two major modules, TagSeek for differentiating tagged and untagged reads, and TagSeqQuant for the quantitative and further characterization analysis of genes and isoforms. Besides, the pipeline also integrates some advanced functions to identify antisense or splicing, and supports the data reformation for visualization. Therefore, TagSeqTools provides a convenient and comprehensive workflow for researchers to analyze the data produced by the NAD tagSeq method or other tagging-based experiments using Oxford nanopore direct RNA sequencing. The pipeline is available at https://github.com/dorothyzh/TagSeqTools, under Apache License 2.0.