Messenger RNA or mRNA helps translate the coding in DNA into proteins. For years we have thought there were only four bases in RNA, but researchers have found a fifth, made when the body adds a methyl group to adenine. This changes how the proteins are made and could lead to a number of diseases.
The research was published in Cell.
This is nothing new, modified nucleotides in RNA have been well documented, including in mRNA. Even going as far back as 1984! (http://www.pnas.org/content/81/18/5667.full.pdf+html) The researchers didn’t find this “new” nucleotide, but they did add to the evidence for its presence the 3′ end (adding to evidence from 2010 – http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/38/16/5327; and from earlier this year – http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7397/full/nature11112.html ) and also confirmed other work done on FTO in 2011 (http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v7/n12/full/nchembio.687.html). The importance and ubiquity of the m6A modification is also nothing new (http://www.plantcell.org/content/20/5/1278.abstract ; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1369564/).
Thanks for this extra information