RNabel─A Standalone Software Tool for Annotating Tandem Mass Spectra of Modified Ribonucleic Acids

Abstract Ribonucleic acid (RNA) modifications, with over 170 identified types, play diverse roles in cellular processes. The past decade has witnessed a surging demand for accurate identification and localization of RNA modifications in both endogenous and synthetic therapeutic RNAs. With accurate spectral annotation for RNA, tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) can meet this demand. Here, we present RNabel, a user-friendly software tool for in-depth annotation of MS/MS spectra of RNA oligonucleotides. RNabel considers a full set of backbone-cleavage ions (a, b, c, d, a-B, w, x, y, z) in which the ribonucleotide unit could be A, U, C, G, Y (pseudouridine), or I (Inosine). Additionally, RNabel considers 196 modifications on the base, the phosphoribose linkage, the 5′ or the 3′ terminus, or the detachment of a subnucleotide fragment as a neutral or charged group. Users can create new components if needed, including ribonucleotides, modifications, and neutral or charged groups that could detach from a ribonucleotide. RNabel efficiently processes large data sets in four acceptable formats including .mgf, .raw, .txt from msConvert, and RNabel batch files. Multiple statistical metrics are provided for quality assessment of spectral annotation. To accelerate RNA modification analysis, RNabel is made freely available for Mac and Windows users at https://github.com/songge1111/RNabel/releases.