ARTICLE Received 20 Mar 2014 | Accepted 2 Dec 2014 | Published 21 Jan 2015 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7002 Sequencing of first-strand cDNA library reveals full-length transcriptomes Saurabh Agarwal1, Todd S. Macfarlan2, Maureen A. Sartor3 & Shigeki Iwase1 Massively parallel strand-specific sequencing of RNA (ssRNA-seq) has emerged as a powerful tool for profiling complex transcriptomes. However, many current methods for ssRNA-seq suffer from the underrepresentation of both the 50 and 30 ends of RNAs, which can be attributed to second-strand cDNA synthesis. The 50 and 30 ends of RNA harbour crucial information for gene regulation; namely, transcription start sites (TSSs) and polyadenylation sites. Here we report a novel ssRNA-seq method that does not involve second-strand cDNA synthesis, as we Directly Ligate sequencing Adaptors to the First-strand cDNA (DLAF). This novel method with fewer enzymatic reactions results in a higher quality of the libraries than the conventional method. Sequencing of DLAF libraries followed by a novel analysis pipeline enables the profiling of both 50 ends and polyadenylation sites at near-base resolution. Therefore, DLAF offers the first genomics tool to obtain the ‘full-length’ transcriptome with a single library. 1 Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA. 2 Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA. 3 Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.I. (email:
[email protected]). NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | 6:6002 | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7002 | www.nature.com/naturecommunications 1 & 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited.