Plants inevitably encounter environmental adversities, including abiotic and biotic stresses, which significantly impede plant growth and reduce crop yield. Thus, fine-tuning the fate and function of stress-responsive RNAs is indispensable for plant survival under such adverse conditions. Recently, post-transcriptional RNA modifications have been studied as a potent route to regulate plant gene expression under stress. Among over 160 mRNA modifications identified to date, N6 -methyladenosine (m6 A) in mRNAs is notable because of its multifaceted roles in plant development and stress response. Recent transcriptome-wide mapping has revealed the distribution and patterns of m6 A in diverse stress-responsive mRNAs in plants, building a foundation for elucidating the molecular link between m6 A and stress response. Moreover, the identification and characterization of m6 A writers, readers and erasers in Arabidopsis and other model crops have offered insights into the biological roles of m6 A in plant abiotic stress responses. Here, we review the recent progress of research on mRNA modifications, particularly m6 A, and their dynamics, distribution, regulation and biological functions in plant stress responses. Further, we posit potential strategies for breeding stress-tolerant crops by engineering mRNA modifications and propose the future direction of research on RNA modifications to gain a much deeper understanding of plant stress biology.
Keywords: crop breeding; epitranscriptomics; m6A; mRNA modification; stress response.
© 2022 The Authors. Plant Biotechnology Journal published by Society for Experimental Biology and The Association of Applied Biologists and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.