Issue 12, 2014

Repair of methyl lesions in RNA by oxidative demethylation

Abstract

Nucleic acid methylation is one of the most important epigenetic modifications that have been studied intensively for the past several decades. Many diseases, such as cancer, neurological diseases and developmental defects, are closely associated with alkylation damage of nucleic acids. Although the majority of research on nucleic acid modification involves DNA methylation, RNA is also extensively modified. RNA methylation is a common and naturally occurring modification in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. The methylation of N6-methyladenine (m6A) is the most abundant modification in RNA and plays a fundamental regulatory role in gene expression. Alkylation damage in RNA can be repaired by RNA demethylases, including Escherichia coli AlkB and human AlkB homologues ALKBH1, ALKBH3, ALKBH5 and FTO. ALKBH5 and FTO are the only two m6A RNA demethylases identified so far. In this review, recent findings on RNA demethylases as well as biological functions and inhibitors will be discussed.

Graphical abstract: Repair of methyl lesions in RNA by oxidative demethylation

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
15 Jun 2014
Accepted
28 Aug 2014
First published
23 Sep 2014

Med. Chem. Commun., 2014,5, 1797-1803

Repair of methyl lesions in RNA by oxidative demethylation

F. Ye, L. Zhang, L. Jin, M. Zheng, H. Jiang and C. Luo, Med. Chem. Commun., 2014, 5, 1797 DOI: 10.1039/C4MD00256C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Spotlight

Advertisements