Figure 3.
Example of chemical modifications in mRNA. Among hundreds of known chemical modifications of RNA bases, several modifications occur within the coding region of mRNA can be classified into three categories. First, modifications occurring in the Watson-crick edge of RNA bases that disrupt base-pairing of mRNA (m6A and m1A), and hinder secondary structure formation or codon-anticodon interaction. Second, modifications occurring outside the Watson-Crick edges of the base (Ψ), which do not alter base-pairing ability of the modified base, but could distort the base-pairing of nearby RNA bases. Third, modifications on the ribose of RNA disrupt its interaction with rRNA during decoding (2′-O-methylation).