RNA methyladenosine of and involves in regulation of diapause of via the lipid metabolism pathway.

Environment-induced epigenetics are involved in diapause regulation, but the molecular mechanism that epigenetically couples nutrient metabolism to diapause regulation remains unclear. In this study, we paid special attention to the significant differences in the level of -adenosine methylation (mA) of dihydroxyacetone phosphate acyltransferase () and phosphatidate phosphatase () genes in the lipid metabolism pathway of the bivoltine silkworm () strain Qiufeng developed from eggs incubated at a normal temperature (QFHT, diapause egg producer) compared to those from eggs incubated at a low temperature (QFLT, non-diapause egg producer). We knocked down in the pupal stage of the QFLT group, resulting in the non-diapause destined eggs becoming diapausing eggs. In the knockdown group, the colour of the non-diapause destined eggs changed from light yellow to pink 3 days after oviposition, but they hatched as normal. Moreover, we validated that YTHDF3 binds to mA-modified and mRNAs to promote their stability and translation. These results suggest that RNA mA methylation participates in the diapause regulation of silkworm by changing the expression levels of and and reveal that mA epigenetic modification can be combined with a lipid metabolism signal pathway to participate in the regulation of insect diapause traits, which provides a clearer image for exploring the physiological basis of insect diapause.