AUTHOR=Li Yu , Zhang Xiao-Ming , Luan Mei-Wei , Xing Jian-Feng , Chen Jianguo , Xie Shang-Qian 

TITLE=Distribution Patterns of DNA N6-Methyladenosine Modification in Non-coding RNA Genes

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2020.00268

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2020.00268

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p>N6-methyladenosine (6mA) DNA modification played an important role in epigenetic regulation of gene expression. And the aberrational expression of non-coding genes, as important regular elements of gene expression, was related to many diseases. However, the distribution and potential functions of 6mA modification in non-coding RNA (ncRNA) genes are still unknown. In this study, we analyzed the 6mA distribution of ncRNA genes and compared them with protein-coding genes in four species (<italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic>, <italic>Caenorhabditis elegans</italic>, <italic>Drosophila melanogaster</italic>, and <italic>Homo sapiens</italic>) using single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing data. The results indicated that the consensus motifs of short nucleotides at 6mA location were highly conserved in four species, and the non-coding gene was less likely to be methylated compared with protein-coding gene. Especially, the 6mA-methylated lncRNA genes were expressed significant lower than genes without methylation in <italic>A. thaliana</italic> (<italic>p</italic> = 3.295e-4), <italic>D. melanogaster</italic> (<italic>p</italic> = 3.439e-11), and <italic>H. sapiens</italic> (<italic>p</italic> = 9.087e-3). The detection and distribution profiling of 6mA modification in ncRNA regions from four species reveal that 6mA modifications may have effects on their expression level.</p>