does anyone know what role adenosine methylation plays in eukaryotes? iv looked through text books, papers, and asked my lecturers at uni, and as far as i can tell it seems that their is some evidence to suggest that adenosine plays some sort of role in dna replication and/or transcription, but no one seems to be sure

 

would appresiate any thoughts/nuggets of wisdom

 

thanx in advance

That's a good question. As far as I remember, methylation of nucleic acids in bacteria identifies the host DNA and prevents restriction endonucleases from splicing it. In eukaryotes, it plays a role in regulating gene expression. You might want to look into the role of methylation in promoters. Do a google search, you should be able to come up with something.

yup, in prokaryotes it protects the cells genome from being cut by the restriction enzymes. in eukaryotes, cytosine methylation plays a role in deactivating genes, but no one seems to be sure of the role of adenosine methylisation in eukaryotes?