mRNA adenosine methylase (MTA) deposits m6A on pri-miRNAs to modulate miRNA biogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana [smallRNAs]

In order to assess the possible effects of m6A on miRNA biogenesis we performed small RNA (sRNA) sequencing to compare their levels in WT Col-0 plants to those in mutant lines with severely reduced m6A levels. The reduced mta line contains MTA cDNA under the ABI3 promoter in MTA null mutant background (ABI3:MTA) and ABI3 being an embryo specific promoter rescues the embryo lethal phenotype of MTA knockout while keeping the levels of MTA in mature plants severely low34. sRNAs isolated from 4 week old WT and mta plants were used to make libraries that were sequenced using HiSeq® (Illumina) and the results were analyzed using NOISeq package in R-Studio. Overall design: wt and mta mutant small RNA sequencing