The je ne sais quoi of 5-methylcytosine in messenger RNA
- 1Shine-Dalgarno Centre for RNA Innovation, Division of Genome Science and Cancer, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
- 2Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Sydney, New South Wales 2010, Australia
- Corresponding author: thomas.preiss{at}anu.edu.au
Abstract
The potential presence of 5-methylcytosine as a sparse internal modification of mRNA was first raised in 1975, and a first map of the modification was also part of the epitranscriptomics “big bang” in 2012. Since then, the evidence for its presence in mRNA has firmed up, and initial insights have been gained into the molecular function and broader biological relevance of 5-methylcytosine when present in mRNA. Here, we summarize the status quo of the field, outline some of its current challenges, and suggest how to address them in future work.
Keywords
- RNA modification
- protein synthesis
- RNA processing
- RNA stability
- methyltransferase
- RNA-binding protein
This article, published in RNA, is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
