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Updated: May 7, 2026

Identification of Alternative Splicing and Polyadenylation in RNA-seq Data
Published on: June 24, 2021
scPASU: A computational protocol for quantifying polyadenylation site usage and alternative polyadenylation from 3'
Alexandra Krylova1, Ninh B Le1, Angela H Ting1
1Department of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77054, USA.
Abstract:
3' single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) captures polyadenylation (poly(A)) sites, enabling quantification of site usage per gene and cell. Here, we present scPASU (single-cell poly(A) site usage), a Snakemake workflow for quantifying poly(A) site usage and alternative polyadenylation from 3' scRNA-seq data. We describe steps for building a poly(A) site reference, generating a site-by-cell matrix per sample, and testing alternative polyadenylation (APA) between cell groups. This protocol is configurable for organism- and sample-specific parameters and supports discovery of poly(A) sites. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Le et al.1.
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