Measurement of RNA transcription and decay rates in larval brains. (A) A protocol for measurement of RNA transcription and decay rates in larval brains. (B) Estimation of the percentage of spliced and unspliced transcripts in the total and 4-thiouridine enriched (4sU+) libraries. (C) Histogram of estimated synthesis and decay rates among all genes. The standard deviation (σ) is used to describe the variation between rates across all genes. The rates were calculated in units TPM/min (transcripts per million per min) and 1/min. For synthesis rates, σ = 0.79, and for decay, σ = 0.44, for log10-transformed rates. (D) Half-lives of all RNAs in the larval brain. Half-life estimates were capped at 1000 min, due to estimation uncertainty of very long half-lives (see Materials and Methods). (E) Box plot showing the synthesis and decay rates of coding mRNAs compared with noncoding RNAs. (*) P < 0.05, (***) P < 10 × 10−40. (F) Half-lives of noncoding RNAs. Named noncoding RNAs with long half-lives are indicated.
