Recently, Gu Xiaofeng group in Biotechnology Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Yu Hao group in the National University of Singapore have made important progress in RNA methylation. Related article "5-Methylcytosine RNA Methylation in Arabidopsis Thaliana" was published online on September 28th in the "Molecular Plant".
RNA as an important genetic material, as of now there are more than 100 different chemical modification was found. m⁶A production mechanism and biological function has published a lot of literature, but RNA on another modified m⁵C (5-methyl cell Pyrimidine) has long studied less. In recent years, the RNA methylation in biological development and gene expression is hot spots.
Based on the improved RNA IP-seq high throughput sequencing, biological information and statistical methods, the distribution of 6045 m⁵C modified enrichment regions on Arabidopsis thaliana mRNA was identified. The m⁵C methyltransferase was found and uncovered the new regulation mechanism in plant development and gene expression. This study has shown that m⁵C, as a new epigenetic marker in plant genes, is involved in the regulation of plant growth and development, which will provide a basis for further study on the mechanism and application of RNA methylation.
Biotechnology Research Institute is the first completion organization, and this research has been funded by the National Youth Thousand Talents Project and the Science and Technology Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.