A chemical labeling of N^(6)-formyl adenosine(f^(6)A) RNA

摘要

N^(6)-methyl adenosine (m^(6)A) is an eminent epigenetic mark in mRNAs that affects a broad range of biological functions in diverse species. However, the chemically inert methyl group prevents a direct labeling of this modification for subsequent detection and sequencing. Therefore, most current approaches for the labeling of m^(6)A still have limitations of relying on the utilization of corresponding methyltransferases, which resulted in the lacking of efficiency. Here we present an approach which selectively alkylated the N^(6)-formyl adenosine (f^(6)A), the key intermediate during chemical oxidation of m^(6)A, with an alkyne functionality that can be further labeled with click reactions. This covalent labeling approach will be able to facilitate in the affinity purification, detection and genome-wide profiling studies.