m6AVar: a database of functional variants involved in m6A modification

Nucleic Acids Res. 2018 Jan 4;46(D1):D139-D145. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkx895.

Abstract

Identifying disease-causing variants among a large number of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) is still a major challenge. Recently, N6-methyladenosine (m6A) has become a research hotspot because of its critical roles in many fundamental biological processes and a variety of diseases. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the effect of variants on m6A modification, in order to gain a better understanding of them. Here, we report m6AVar (http://m6avar.renlab.org), a comprehensive database of m6A-associated variants that potentially influence m6A modification, which will help to interpret variants by m6A function. The m6A-associated variants were derived from three different m6A sources including miCLIP/PA-m6A-seq experiments (high confidence), MeRIP-Seq experiments (medium confidence) and transcriptome-wide predictions (low confidence). Currently, m6AVar contains 16 132 high, 71 321 medium and 326 915 low confidence level m6A-associated variants. We also integrated the RBP-binding regions, miRNA-targets and splicing sites associated with variants to help users investigate the effect of m6A-associated variants on post-transcriptional regulation. Because it integrates the data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and ClinVar, m6AVar is also a useful resource for investigating the relationship between the m6A-associated variants and disease. Overall, m6AVar will serve as a useful resource for annotating variants and identifying disease-causing variants.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adenosine / analogs & derivatives*
  • Adenosine / metabolism
  • Animals
  • Databases, Nucleic Acid*
  • Genetic Variation
  • Genome-Wide Association Study
  • Humans
  • Internet
  • Mice
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • RNA / genetics*
  • RNA / metabolism*
  • RNA Processing, Post-Transcriptional
  • RNA-Binding Proteins / metabolism
  • User-Computer Interface

Substances

  • RNA-Binding Proteins
  • RNA
  • N-methyladenosine
  • Adenosine