mRNA poly A tail degradation detection on a Biozen oligo column

The poly A tail of a messenger RNA (mRNA) is a repeat sequence of adenosine (A) that is an emergingly popular modality among vaccine and gene therapy developers. Grown at the 3’ end, the increasing length of this tail provides additional stability to the “core” sequence that invokes the generation of a protein and subsequent immune response from the host. In this application note from Phenomenex, explore how to distinguish a naturally degraded poly A tail with single nucleotide resolution through Liquid Chromatography (LC) and High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS).