Epitranscriptomics: new players in an old game

Abstract

Ageing is a conserved and unavoidable biological process characterized by progressive decline of physiological functions with time. Despite constituting the greatest risk factor for most human diseases, little is known about the molecular mechanisms driving the ageing process. More than 170 chemical RNA modifications, also known as the epitranscriptome, decorate eukaryotic coding and non-coding RNAs and have emerged as novel regulators of RNA metabolism, modulating RNA stability, translation, splicing or non-coding RNA processing. Studies on short-lived organisms such as yeast or worms connect mutations on RNA modifying enzymes with lifespan changes, and dysregulation of the epitranscriptome has been linked to age-related diseases and ageing hallmarks themselves in mammals. Moreover, transcriptome-wide analyses are starting to reveal changes in messenger RNA modifications in neurodegenerative diseases and in the expression of some RNA modifiers with age. These studies are starting to put the focus on the epitranscriptome as a potential novel regulator of ageing and lifespan, and open new avenues for the identification of targets to treat age-related diseases. In this review, we discuss the connection between RNA modifications and the enzymatic machinery regulating their deposition in coding and non-coding RNAs, and ageing and hypothesize about the potential role of RNA modifications in the regulation of other ncRNAs playing a key role in ageing, such as transposable elements and tRNA fragments. Finally, we reanalyze available datasets of mouse tissues during ageing and report a wide transcriptional dysregulation of proteins involved in the deposition, removal or decoding of several of the best-known RNA modifications.