The m6A regulatory network in plant stress adaptation: from mechanisms to breeding potential.

Abstract

N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is the most abundant internal modification of eukaryotic mRNA and is dynamically regulated by three classes of proteins: writers, erasers, and readers. Writers deposit methylation marks, erasers confer reversibility, and readers translate these signals into specific regulatory outcomes, collectively modulating mRNA stability, translation efficiency, splicing, and polyadenylation, thereby influencing plant stress adaptation. Studies across diverse plant species have revealed both conserved principles and species-specific variations in this regulatory network. Technological advances, such as methylated RNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (MeRIP-seq) and nanopore direct RNA sequencing, have enabled transcriptome-wide m⁶A profiling. However, functional validation of m⁶A modification in most crops remains limited to a few model species and controlled environments, and their practical breeding potential requires systematic evaluation. This review systematically summarizes the functions of m⁶A writers, erasers, and readers in crop stress responses, synthesizes the regulatory patterns at the levels of mRNA stability, translation efficiency, and splicing and discusses m⁶A-based breeding strategies and their current bottlenecks, providing a theoretical reference for stress-resilient crop breeding. CRISPR/dCas13-based targeted modification systems, together with methyltransferase overexpression or demethylase knockout strategies, have demonstrated breeding potential in several crops, although field-level validation remains limited. Future research needs to prioritize how the writer-eraser-reader network achieves stress-specific regulation without causing pleiotropic developmental defects, how m⁶A pattern differs between single and combined stresses, and how natural variation in m⁶A regulatory gene can be exploited for breeding. On this basis, establishing causal links between specific m⁶A sites and agronomic phenotypes, while integrating multi-omics approaches and precision editing technologies, will be essential to translate epitranscriptomic knowledge into crop improvement.