RNA-peptides were re-suspended in 100 μL of 100 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0)/ 2 mM MgCl2, sonicated for 15 min and incubated at 95 ºC for 20 min. 2 μg RNase A/T1 mix (2 mg/mL of RNase A and 5000 U/mL of RNase T1) was added to cooled samples, and incubated for 4 h at 37 ºC followed by a second protease digestion using 1 μg trypsin (Promega) overnight at 37 ºC. Digested samples were desalted with Oligo R3 as described in the “proteomics sample preparation” section and dried on speedvac (Labconco).
Digests were re-suspended in 30-40 μL of 80% acetonitrile (ACN)/2% TFA containing 1 μg of TiO2 beads (GL Sciences). The slurry was transferred into a p200 tip containing a C8 “plug” (3M Empore, Sigma-Aldrich) to retain the loaded TiO2 beads and the flow-through collected. The packed TiO2 was washed with 20 μL 80% ACN/2% TFA, then 20 μL 10% ACN/0.1% TFA and the flow-through from both retained. The TiO2-enriched fraction was eluted from the beads with two rounds of 20 μL of ammonia solution (1.5-1.8%), pH>10.5, and 20 μL of 50% ACN.