3 ms·
Sequencing technologies have improved immensely over the last decade and a half. And, in this particular case, getting the sample RNA is incredibly easy, since
by flobosg 6y ago
Sequencing technologies have improved immensely over the last decade and a half. And, in this particular case, getting the sample RNA is incredibly easy, since its purity and integrity in the vial is quite high.
- shellfishgene 6y agoI didn't look at the details of how they sequenced it, but given that there are chemically modified bases in the mRNA vaccines there is a chance the normal methods for sequencing (and the first step of translating to DNA) don't work. Well, I guess in practice they did.
- flobosg 6y agoWhile not completely equal to the naturally occuring bases, the modified bases in the vaccine mRNA need to be able to complement to the non-modified ones present in tRNA anticodons during translation. If they can pair to their corresponding natural bases, then the chemically modified RNA can be also used as a template by the reverse transcriptase to generate the complementary DNA needed for the sequencing reaction.
- shellfishgene 6y agoGenerally I agree, but it could be the case that the modified bases work just well enough for tRNA matching in the ribosome, but not with the reverse transcriptase.
- flobosg 6y agoThe mechanism of base complementarity is identical in both cases. If a modified uracil complements an adenine in tRNA, it will complement an adenine in the RT primer or an adenine being added to it.