Researchers from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University have completed a 
high-resolution prediction of the whole-transcriptome m6A RNA modification, 
successfully creating the world's most accurate map of the m6A 
epitranscriptome. 

Led by Dr Jia Meng from the Department of Biological Sciences, the research was 
recently published in Nucleic Acids Research. 

Dr Meng says the results may have promising implications for a range of 
diseases. 

"It's hard to predict which diseases will benefit from the research into m6A 
RNA methylation but studies indicate the enzymes of m6A RNA methylation play a 
key role in leukemia, lung cancer and breast cancer," he says. 

"As a fundamental layer of gene regulation, I wouldn't be surprised to see 
epitranscriptome regulation through reversible m6A RNA methylation playing an 
important role in many diseases. 

"Cancer is proving to be a promising direction to explore further." 

Dr Meng says RNA stands for ribonucleic acid – known as the 'cousin' of DNA – 
and that m6A RNA modification is a type of biochemical modification of RNA 
molecules, which can alter their biological properties and regulate gene 
expression without changing its sequences. 

"Previously the accuracy of m6A RNA modification site prediction could only 
reach approximately 80 percent using conventional sequence information," he 
says.

"What we found is that by adding 35 additional genomic features, we can 
increase the accuracy to 90 per cent, which is a big step forward."

Dr Meng says it's a hot topic in biological science today, as there are more 
than 100 different types of RNA modifications, and their functions are largely 
unknown. 

According to Dr Meng, the m6A is the most abundant and is likely to be the most 
valuable to study.

The research team used a machine-learning approach when drafting the map of the 
m6A epitranscriptome, establishing a prediction model based on the conventional 
sequence features and new genomic features to predict the precise locations on 
genes that might be related to RNA modifications.

PhD student Kunqi Chen says more accurate predictions and a better 
understanding of the site of the RNA modifications allow scientists to more 
easily identify which enzymes are involved in the process. 

"Our work contributes to the study of genetic functions and traits, and the 
relationship between genes and some human diseases," he says.

SOURCE: Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University