N6-Methyladenosine (m6A) stands
out as the
predominant internal modification in mammalian RNA, exerting crucial
regulatory functions in the metabolism of mRNA. Currently available
methods have been limited by an inability to quantify m6A modification at precise sites. In this work, we screened a Bst
2.0 warm start DNA polymerase with the capability of discriminating
m6A from adenosine (A) and developed a robust m6A RNA detection method that enables isothermal and ultrasensitive
quantification of m6A RNA at single-base resolution. The
detection limit of the assay could reach about 0.02 amol, and the
quantitative accuracy of the assay was verified in real cell samples.
Furthermore, we applied this assay to single-cell analysis and found
that the coefficients of variation of the MALAT1 m6A 2611
site in glioblastoma U251 cells showed over 20% higher than in oligodendrocytes
MO3.13 cells. This method provides a highly sensitive analytical tool
for site-specific m6A detection and quantification, which
is expected to provide a basis for precise disease diagnosis and epigenetic
transcriptional regulation.