Arabidopsis m⁶A demethylase activity modulates viral infection of a plant virus and the m⁶A abundance in its genomic RNAs.

ABSTRACT: N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is an internal, reversible nucleotide modification that constitutes an important regulatory mechanism in RNA biology. Unlike mammals and yeast, no component of the m⁶A cellular machinery has been described in plants at present. m⁶A has been identified in the genomic RNAs of diverse mammalian viruses and, additionally, viral infection was found to be modulated by the abundance of m⁶A in viral RNAs. Here we show that the Arabidopsis thaliana protein atALKBH9B (At2g17970) is a demethylase that removes m⁶A from single-stranded RNA molecules in vitro. atALKBH9B accumulates in cytoplasmic granules, which colocalize with siRNA bodies and associate with P bodies, suggesting that atALKBH9B m⁶

SUBMITTER: Martinez-Perez M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5635872 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature