Cao H, Salazar-García L, Gao F, Wahlestedt T, Wu CL, Han X, Cai Y, Xu D, Wang F, Tang L, Ricciardi N, Cai D, Wang H, Chin MPS, Timmons JA, Wahlestedt C, Kapranov P.

Nat Commun. 2019 Dec 20;10(1):5799. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-13602-7

Novel approach reveals genomic landscapes of single-strand DNA breaks with nucleotide resolution in human cells.

SSiNGLe: “single-strand break mapping at nucleotide genome level”. In the simplest form of this method, 3′-OH breaks are poly-A tailed and sequenced on a SeqLL (ex-Helicos) platform. A more complicated Illumina version exists. The authors found more breaks in gene regions (promoters, exons, introns), an also in mitochondrial DNA of aged patients and in regions displaying more sequence variants in the human population.