The mechanism of RNA methylation modification regulating strawberry ripening revealed

The nutrients rich in fruits are an important part of human diet and are indispensable to human health
.
The quality of the fruit is gradually formed during the ripening process and is precisely regulated

Studies have shown that DNA methylation plays an important role in the maturation regulation of both climacteric and non-climacteric fruits
.
Corresponding to DNA methylation, RNA methylation (m ⁶ A) is the most abundant modification on mRNA, which is essential for multiple biological processes in plants and animals

Different researchers compared strawberry fruit maturity m ^.
6 A methyl group (m ^.
6 A methylome), found m ^.
6 A modified during strawberry fruit ripening are dynamic
.
Similar to tomato fruits, m ⁶ A modifications in strawberry fruits can be enriched in stop codons and 3'UTR regions, and are negatively correlated with gene expression

Further studies have shown that m ⁶ A methyltransferases MTA and MTB positively regulate strawberry fruit ripening, and MTA plays an important role in the m ⁶ A modification of NCED5 , ABAR and AREB1 .
It is worth mentioning that in tomato fruits, m ⁶ A modification can regulate the stability of DNA demethylase genes, while in strawberry fruits, DNA demethylase genes are not regulated by m ⁶ A, indicating that m ⁶ Modification A affects tomato and strawberry fruit ripening in different ways .

This study confirmed that m ⁶ A modification plays an important role in the regulation of different types of fruits, but the mechanism of action is different
.
In tomato fruits, m ⁶ A modification mainly plays a role through feedback regulation of DNA methylation, while in strawberry fruits, m ⁶ A modification affects fruit maturity by regulating the ABA pathway

The research results were published online in "Genome Biology" on June 3
.
The research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program and the National Natural Science Foundation of China

Related paper information: https://doi.
org/10.
1186/s13059-021-02385-0