4x62

Publication Abstract from PubMed

N6-methylation of adenosine (forming m6A) is the most abundant post-transcriptional modification within the coding region of mRNA, but its role during translation remains unknown. Here, we used bulk kinetic and single-molecule methods to probe the effect of m6A in mRNA decoding. Although m6A base-pairs with uridine during decoding, as shown by X-ray crystallographic analyses of Thermus thermophilus ribosomal complexes, our measurements in an Escherichia coli translation system revealed that m6A modification of mRNA acts as a barrier to tRNA accommodation and translation elongation. The interaction between an m6A-modified codon and cognate tRNA echoes the interaction between a near-cognate codon and tRNA, because delay in tRNA accommodation depends on the position and context of m6A within codons and on the accuracy level of translation. Overall, our results demonstrate that chemical modification of mRNA can change translational dynamics.

N-methyladenosine in mRNA disrupts tRNA selection and translation-elongation dynamics.,Choi J, Ieong KW, Demirci H, Chen J, Petrov A, Prabhakar A, O'Leary SE, Dominissini D, Rechavi G, Soltis SM, Ehrenberg M, Puglisi JD Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2016 Jan 11. doi: 10.1038/nsmb.3148. PMID:26751643^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.