Transcriptome-wide N6-methyladenosine modification profiling of long non-coding RNAs in patients with recurrent implantation failure.

Abstract

N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is involved in most biological processes and actively participates in the regulation of reproduction. According to recent research, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and their m⁶A modifications are involved in reproductive diseases. In the present study, using m⁶A-modified RNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (m⁶A-seq), we established the m⁶A methylation transcription profiles in patients with recurrent implantation failure (RIF) for the first time. There were 1443 significantly upregulated m⁶A peaks and 425 significantly downregulated m⁶A peaks in RIF. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analyses revealed that genes associated with differentially methylated lncRNAs are involved in the p53 signalling pathway and amino acid metabolism. The competing endogenous RNA network revealed a regulatory relationship between lncRNAs, microRNAs and messenger RNAs. We verified the m⁶A methylation abundances of lncRNAs by using m⁶A-RNA immunoprecipitation (MeRIP)-real-time polymerase chain reaction. This study lays a foundation for further exploration of the potential role of m⁶A modification in the pathogenesis of RIF.