[ad_1]
SUZHOU, China, March 21, 2019 / PRNewswire / – Researchers from Xi & # 39; an Jiaotong-University of Liverpool have completed a high-resolution prediction of m6A RNA modification of the entire transcriptome, successfully creating the world's most accurate map of the m6A epitranscriptome.
Led by Dr. Jia Meng of the Department of Biological Sciences, research has recently been published in Nucleic acid research.
Dr. Meng said the results could have promising implications for a range of diseases.
"It's hard to predict which diseases will benefit from research on methylation of m6A RNA, but studies indicate that m6A RNA methylation enzymes play a key role in leukemia, cancer lung cancer and bad cancer, "he said.
"As a fundamental layer of gene regulation, I would not be surprised to see the regulation of the epitranscriptome by reversible methylation of the m6A RNA play an important role in many diseases.
"Cancer is proving to be a promising direction to explore further."
According to Dr. Meng, RNA means ribonucleic acid – known as the "cousin" of DNA – and that modification of m6A RNA is a type of biochemical modification of RNA molecules, which can modify their biological properties and regulate the expression of genes without changing the sequences.
"Previously, the precision of the prediction of the m6A RNA modification site could only reach about 80% using conventional sequence information," he said.
"What we've found is that by adding 35 additional genomic features, we can increase accuracy to 90%, which is a big step forward."
Dr. Meng says that it is a hot topic in biology today because there are more than 100 different types of RNA modifications and their functions are largely unknown.
According to Dr. Meng, m6A is the most abundant and will probably be the most interesting to study.
The research team used a machine learning approach when writing the m6A epitranscriptome map, establishing a prediction model based on conventional sequence characteristics and new genomic characteristics to to predict the precise locations of genes that may be related to RNA modifications.
Kunqi Chen, PhD student, says that more accurate predictions and a better understanding of the site of RNA changes allow scientists to more easily identify the enzymes involved in the process.
"Our work contributes to the study of genetic functions and traits, as well as the relationship between genes and certain human diseases," he says.
SOURCE University Xi & # 39; an Jiaotong-Liverpool
Source link
