Enzymatic or in vivo installation of propargyl groups in combination with click chemistry enables enrichment and detection of methyltransferase target sites in RNA

Hartstock K, Nilges B, Ovcharenko A, Lawrence-Doerner A M, Cornelissen N, Puellen N, Leidel S, Rentmeister A

Abstract

m6A is the most abundant internal modification in eukaryotic mRNA. It is introduced by METTL3-METTL14 and tunes mRNA metabolism, impacting cell differentiation and development. Precise transcriptome-wide assignment of m6A sites is of utmost importance. However, m6A does not interfere with Watson-Crick base pairing making polymerase-based detection challenging. We developed a chemical-biology approach for the precise mapping of methyltransferase (MTase) target sites based on the introduction of a bioorthogonal propargyl group in vitro and in cells. We show that propargyl can be introduced enzymatically by wild-type METTL3-METTL14. Reverse transcription terminated up to 65 % at m6A sites after bioconjugation and purification, hence enabling detection of METTL3-METTL14 target sites by next generation sequencing. Importantly, we implemented metabolic propargyl labeling of RNA MTase target sites in vivo based on propargyl-L-selenohomocysteine and validated different types of known rRNA methylation sites.