Unique features of the m6A methylome and its response to drought stress in sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides Linn.)

Guoyun Zhang; Zhongrui Lv; Songfeng Diao; Hong Liu; Aiguo Duan; Caiyun He; Jianguo Zhang

doi:10.1080/15476286.2021.1992996

Unique features of the m⁶A methylome and its response to drought stress in sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides Linn.)

RNA Biol. 2021 Nov 12;18(sup2):794-803. doi: 10.1080/15476286.2021.1992996. Epub 2021 Nov 21.

Authors

Guoyun Zhang¹, Zhongrui Lv¹, Songfeng Diao², Hong Liu¹, Aiguo Duan¹, Caiyun He¹, Jianguo Zhang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding & Key Laboratory of Tree Breeding and Cultivation, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
² Non-timber Forestry Research and Development Center, Chinese Academy of Forestry & Key Laboratory of Non-timber Forest Germplasm Enhancement & Utilization of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Zhengzhou, China.
³ Collaborative Innovation Center of Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

In plants, recent studies have revealed that N6-methyladenosine (m⁶A) methylation of mRNA has potential regulatory functions of this mRNA modification in many biological processes. m⁶A methyltransferase, m⁶A demethylase and m⁶A-binding proteins can cause differential phenotypes, indicating that m⁶A may have critical roles in the plant. In this study, we depicted the m⁶A map of sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides Linn.) transcriptome. Similar to A. thaliana, m⁶A sites of sea buckthorn transcriptome is significantly enriched around the stop codon and within 3'-untranslated regions (3'UTR). Gene ontology analysis shows that the m⁶A modification genes are associated with metabolic biosynthesis. In addition, we identified 13,287 different m⁶A peaks (DMPs) between leaf under drought (TR) and control (CK) treatment. It reveals that m⁶A has a high level of conservation and has a positive correlation with mRNA abundance in plants. GO and KEGG enrichment results showed that DMP modification DEGs in TR were particularly associated with ABA biosynthesis. Interestingly, our results showed three m⁶A demethylase (HrALKBH10B, HrALKBH10C and HrALKBH10D) genes were significantly increased following drought stress, which indicated that it may contributed the decreased m⁶A levels. This exhaustive m⁶A map provides a basis and resource for the further functional study of mRNA m⁶A modification in abiotic stress.

Keywords: N6-methyladenosine; Sea buckthorn; drought stress; m6A demethylase; m6A modification.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adenosine / analogs & derivatives*
Adenosine / genetics
Adenosine / metabolism
Droughts*
Gene Expression Profiling
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant*
Hippophae / classification
Hippophae / physiology*
Methylation
Phylogeny
Plant Proteins / genetics
Plant Proteins / metabolism
RNA, Messenger / genetics*
RNA, Messenger / metabolism
Signal Transduction
Stress, Physiological*
Transcriptome*

Substances

Plant Proteins
RNA, Messenger
N-methyladenosine
Adenosine

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds of CAF [CAFYBB2020SY006]; the Joint Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [U2003116].