Download MendeleyStructure of the Caenorhabditis elegans m6A methyltransferase METT10 that regulates SAM homeostasis.
Ju, J., Aoyama, T., Yashiro, Y., Yamashita, S., Kuroyanagi, H., Tomita, K.(2023) Nucleic Acids Res 51: 2434-2446
- PubMed: 36794723
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad081
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:
8GU3 - PubMed Abstract:
In Caenorhabditis elegans, the N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification by METT10, at the 3'-splice sites in S-adenosyl-l-methionine (SAM) synthetase (sams) precursor mRNA (pre-mRNA), inhibits sams pre-mRNA splicing, promotes alternative splicing coupled with nonsense-mediated decay of the pre-mRNAs, and thereby maintains the cellular SAM level. Here, we present structural and functional analyses of C. elegans METT10. The structure of the N-terminal methyltransferase domain of METT10 is homologous to that of human METTL16, which installs the m6A modification in the 3'-UTR hairpins of methionine adenosyltransferase (MAT2A) pre-mRNA and regulates the MAT2A pre-mRNA splicing/stability and SAM homeostasis. Our biochemical analysis suggested that C. elegans METT10 recognizes the specific structural features of RNA surrounding the 3'-splice sites of sams pre-mRNAs, and shares a similar substrate RNA recognition mechanism with human METTL16. C. elegans METT10 also possesses a previously unrecognized functional C-terminal RNA-binding domain, kinase associated 1 (KA-1), which corresponds to the vertebrate-conserved region (VCR) of human METTL16. As in human METTL16, the KA-1 domain of C. elegans METT10 facilitates the m6A modification of the 3'-splice sites of sams pre-mRNAs. These results suggest the well-conserved mechanisms for the m6A modification of substrate RNAs between Homo sapiens and C. elegans, despite their different regulation mechanisms for SAM homeostasis.
Organizational Affiliation:
Department of Computational Biology and Medical Sciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8562, Japan.
