Brothers in arms: Emerging roles of RNA epigenetics in DNA damage repair

Abstract

N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is a widespread posttranscriptional RNA modification that occurs in tRNA, rRNA, snRNA, viral RNAs, and more recently is shown to occur in mRNA in a dynamic, reversible manner. At the epicenter of RNA epigenetics, m6A influences essentially all stages of RNA metabolism. As a result, m6A modulates cell differentiation and pluripotency, cell cycle and tumorigenesis, and several types of stress responses, etc. A recent report by Shi and colleagues uncovers a novel pathway in which m6A RNA, its associated enzymes, and DNA polymerase Κ constitute an early-response system that confers cellular resistance to ultraviolet irradiation, separate from the canonical nucleotide excision repair (NER) pathway that normally repairs UV-induced DNA damage.