Loss of age-associated increase in mA-modified RNA contributes to GABAergic dysregulation in Alzheimer's disease.

Dysregulated RNA metabolism is a significant feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD), yet how post-transcriptional RNA modifications like -methyladenosine (mA) are altered in AD is unknown. Here, we performed deamination adjacent to RNA modification targets (DART-seq) on human dorsolateral prefrontal cortices to assess changes in mA with nucleotide resolution. In non-AD brains, mA sites increased with age, predominantly within the 3'UTR of transcripts encoding tripartite synapse proteins. In contrast, AD brains lost the age-associated mA site increase and exhibited global hypomethylation of transcripts, including and . Hypomethylated genes involved with GABAergic signaling, glutamate transport, and ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis exhibited reduced expression, connecting mA to synaptic excitotoxicity and disrupted proteostasis in AD. Site-specific mA levels were linked with expression and protein levels, but this relationship was abolished in AD. Our findings provide insight into post-transcriptional mechanisms of dysregulated RNA metabolism in AD that are related to aging and GABAergic regulation.