m6A modified lncRNA profile of glioblastoma and healthy brain

Interest in long-non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) during oncogenesis is constantly increasing. lncRNA plays an important role in gene regulation via chromatin remodelling, RNA processing, transcriptional activation, in protein function and activity alteration via direct interaction with proteins etc. Recently developed methods for RNA chemical modification identification, promoted interest in human epitranscriptome. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most prominent and widely studied RNA modification, which affects RNA stability, location, and translation. However, information on m6A effect to lncRNAs and other non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) is lacking. Here we compare transcriptome wide m6A modifications of lncRNAs in human glioblastoma and healthy brain samples applying direct RNA sequencing method from Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT dRNA-seq). The analysis of ONT dRNA-seq identified lncRNA targets that are differentially modified between glioblastoma and healthy human brain specimen. Previously reported glioma associated lncRNAs like NEAT1, SOX2-OT, SNGH6, OIP5-AS1, etc. in present study showed decreased levels of m6A modification in glioblastoma specimens compared to healthy brain samples indicating that m6A demethylation of lncRNAs transcripts might be characteristic during gliomagenesis.