A combination of RNase H and S1 nuclease circumvents an artefact inherent to conventional S1 analysis of RNA splicing.

S1 nuclease mapping is commonly used to analyze transcription and processing of unlabelled RNAs. However, the S1 protocol that appears best suited to demonstrate splicing of a particular RNA (using an intronless probe that is 5' end-labelled in the downstream exon) is not diagnostic as expected. Rather, both intron-containing RNA and intronless RNA confer protection of probe across the splice juncture. To unambiguously demonstrate correctly spliced RNAs that begin at a specific initiation site, we present a procedure in which unspliced RNA molecules are first cleaved by RNase H following annealing to an intronic DNA fragment and the remaining RNA is then subjected to S1 analysis using an intronless probe present in vast excess. Only spliced, correctly initiated transcripts can protect the probe across the splice junction and up to residue +1. This RNase H/S1 method provides a broadly applicable technique with which to demonstrate splicing and initiation of a variety of transcripts, especially ones from transfected genes that can arise both from the normal and from activated cryptic initiation sites.