As a reversible modification, N6-methyladenosine (m6A) plays key roles in series of biological processes. Although it has been found that m6A modification is regulated by writers, erasers and readers, their evolutionary processes are still not clearly and systematically described. In the present work, we identified 1592 m6A modification regulators from 65 representative plant species and performed the phylogenetic relationships, sequence structure, selection pressure, and codon usage analysis across species. The regulators from different species or subfamilies were distinguishable based on the phylogenetic trees. Although the gene structure was structurally and functionally conserved for each kind of regulators, the unique exon/intron structures and motif organizations were observed among different families. The selection pressure analysis demonstrated that the regulators experienced purifying selection. Interestingly, the selection pressure for the regulators in higher plants was more relaxed, indicating that they might have acquired new functions during evolution. In addition, the different codon usage preferences were observed for the different kinds of m6A modification regulators. These results will not only facilitate our understanding of the evolution of m6A regulators, but also shed light on how the evolutionary differences affect their functional divergence.
Keywords: Codon usage; Evolution; N(6)-methyladenosine; Phylogeny; Selection pressure.
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