Biochemical and mass spectrometric analysis of 3′-end methylation of piRNAs

Abstract

Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNA) are fully modified by 2′-O-methylation at their 3′-termini. This terminal methylation is required to prevent 3′-nucleotide addition, which serves as a tag for destabilization. In this chapter, we describe biochemical and mass spectrometric analyses of 2′-O-methylation at 3′-termini of piRNAs. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.