Probing the epitranscriptome and RNA damage with nanopore direct RNA sequencing

Structural illustration to rationalize the base and sugar points of contact in the helicase for detecting the difference in methylation status of E. coli 16S m⁴Cm1402 under thermal or metabolic stress. Note that in this model, Phe350 and Lys 289 contact nucleotides near the active site that are 2 nt apart. The helicase structure is for Hel308 (PDB 2P6R; [Büttner et al. 2007]), based on the patent literature from ONT, as the one that has been modified for sequencing (Bruce et al. 2015). Because we do not know the exact identity of the helicase or the modifications made by ONT, this structure is our best guess based on the available information.