mRNA chemical modifications in model and crop plants.

Plant epitranscriptomics links multiple mRNA chemical marks—especially m6A—to regulation of growth, developmental transitions, and abiotic-stress responses across model and crop species.

• Why it matters: Understanding how RNA modifications control mRNA processing and translation is key to filling gaps in plant epigenetic regulation and enabling crop improvement under changing environments.
• What they did: The review synthesizes evidence on m6A plus ac4C, m5C, m1A, m7G, and pseudouridine, mapping plant “writers,” “erasers,” and “readers” and highlighting detection advances from chromatography to third-generation single-molecule sequencing.
• The result: It concludes that while mechanisms and cross-species conservation beyond m6A remain poorly understood, manipulating these pathways via gene editing could support molecular breeding for yield, nutritional quality, and abiotic stress tolerance.

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