ABSTRACT Recent studies have argued that the m 6 A modification of mRNAs promotes mRNA recruitment to stress granules through the interaction with YTHDF proteins (Anders et al., 2018; Ries et al., 2019). However, mRNAs that contain multiple m 6 A modified sites partition similarly into stress granules in both wild-type and m 6 A-deficient cells by single-molecule FISH suggesting m 6 A modifications play a minor role in mRNA partitioning into stress granules. Moreover, multiple linear regression analysis suggests m 6 A modification plays a minimal role in stress granule recruitment. Finally, the artificial tethering of 25 YTHDF proteins on reporter mRNAs leads to only a modest increase in mRNA partitioning to stress granules. These results indicate m 6 A modification makes a small, but measurable, contribution to recruiting specific mRNAs to stress granules.

Limited effects of m6A modification on mRNA partitioning into stress granules