m6A regulates breast cancer proliferation and migration through stage-dependent changes in Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition gene expression.

While many factors have been implicated in breast cancer progression, effective treatments are still lacking. In recent years, it has become clear that posttranscriptional regulation plays a key role in the aberrant gene expression underlying malignancy and metastasis. For example, the mRNA modification N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is involved in numerous post-transcriptional regulation processes and has been implicated in many cancer types, including breast cancer.

Assessing 2'-O-Methylation of mRNA Using Quantitative PCR.

2'-O-methylation (Nm) is an RNA modification commonly found on rRNA and snRNA, and at the mRNA 5'-cap, but has more recently been found internally on mRNA. The study of internal Nm modifications on mRNA is in the early stages, but we have reported that this sort of Nm modification can regulate mRNA abundance and translation. Although there are many methods to determine the presence of Nm on rRNA, detecting Nm on specific mRNA transcripts is technically difficult because they are much less abundant than rRNA.

Modification of messenger RNA by 2'-O-methylation regulates gene expression in vivo.

Epitranscriptomic modifications of mRNA are important regulators of gene expression. While internal 2'-O-methylation (Nm) has been discovered on mRNA, questions remain about its origin and function in cells and organisms. Here, we show that internal Nm modification can be guided by small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs), and that these Nm sites can regulate mRNA and protein expression.