mRNA m6A regulates porcine intramuscular fat deposition via YTHDF1-dependent enhancement of MTCH2 translation

We performed m6A sequencing to compare N6 transcriptome methylation profiles of the longissimus dorsi muscles (LDMs) between Landrace pigs (a Danish pig breed) and Jinhua (a Chinese pig breed with higher levels of intramuscular fat). The results show m6A is widely spread and highly conserved in pig mRNA. m6A occurs in the conserved sequence motif of GGACU and exhibits a unique topology in pig.Transcriptome-wide m6A profiling revealed that about 20% of transcribed genes were modified by m6A, with the consensus sequence GGACU appearing highly in m6A-modified genes. Functional enrichment analysis showed that genes differentially methylated in LDMs of the two porcine breeds were related to gene regulation and muscle development and differentiation,suggesting that the m6A modification is tissue-specific and influences mRNA stability or translation. m6A-seq from Landrace and Jinhua pig to reveal m6A function in intramuscular fat deposition.