Luo Guan-Zheng, MacQueen Alice, Zheng Guanqun, Duan Hongchao, Dore Louis C, Lu Zhike, Liu Jun, Chen Kai, Jia Guifang, Bergelson Joy, He Chuan
Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Nat Commun. 2014 Nov 28;5:5630. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6630.
Recent discoveries of reversible N(6)-methyladenosine (m(6)A) methylation on messenger RNA (mRNA) and mapping of m(6)A methylomes in mammals and yeast have revealed potential regulatory functions of this RNA modification. In plants, defects in m(6)A methyltransferase cause an embryo-lethal phenotype, suggesting a critical role of m(6)A in plant development. Here, we profile m(6)A transcriptome-wide in two accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana and reveal that m(6)A is a highly conserved modification of mRNA in plants. Distinct from mammals, m(6)A in A. thaliana is enriched not only around the stop codon and within 3'-untranslated regions, but also around the start codon. Gene ontology analysis indicates that the unique distribution pattern of m(6)A in A. thaliana is associated with plant-specific pathways involving the chloroplast. We also discover a positive correlation between m(6)A deposition and mRNA abundance, suggesting a regulatory role of m(6)A in plant gene expression.
近期在信使核糖核酸（mRNA）上发现的可逆N⁶-甲基腺苷（m⁶A）甲基化以及对哺乳动物和酵母中m⁶A甲基化组的定位，揭示了这种RNA修饰的潜在调控功能。在植物中，m⁶A甲基转移酶的缺陷会导致胚胎致死表型，这表明m⁶A在植物发育中起关键作用。在此，我们对两个拟南芥生态型进行了全转录组范围的m⁶A分析，发现m⁶A是植物中mRNA的一种高度保守的修饰。与哺乳动物不同，拟南芥中的m⁶A不仅在终止密码子周围和3'非翻译区内富集，在起始密码子周围也有富集。基因本体分析表明，拟南芥中m⁶A独特的分布模式与涉及叶绿体的植物特异性途径相关。我们还发现m⁶A沉积与mRNA丰度之间存在正相关，这表明m⁶A在植物基因表达中具有调控作用。
