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Versatile functions of RNA m6A machinery on chromatin
Tanjing Song* , Suli Lv , Neng Li , Xuefeng Zhao , Xianyun Ma , Yingying Yan , Weixia Wang , Lidong Sun*
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medicine, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China
*Correspondence to:Tanjing Song , Email:SongT@hust.edu.cn Lidong Sun , Email:LidongSun@hust.edu.cn
J Mol Cell Biol, Volume 14, Issue 3, March 2022, mjac011,  https://doi.org/10.1093/jmcb/mjac011
Keyword: m6A, chromatin, RNA methylation, histone modifications, epigenetics

m6A, a conserved and abundant modification on RNA, regulates RNA processing and function. RNA m6A machinery, including writers, erasers, and readers of m6A, is indispensable for m6A installation and function. Intriguingly, recent studies have revealed that m6A machinery can be recruited to chromatin by pleiotropic factors, including nascent RNA, transcription factors, regulatory RNA, histone modifications, and epigenetic machinery. Consequently, recruitment of m6A machinery can directly regulate chromatin biology, such as transcription, DNA damage repair, and DNA recombination beyond installation of m6A on nascent mRNA. Here, we discuss recent evidence showing that m6A machinery is targeted to chromatin and the direct biological consequences along with the underlying mechanisms.