5-Methylcytidine is a modified nucleoside derived from 5-methylcytosine and is a minor constituent of RNA as well as DNA for certain organisms.1,2 Roughly one to two residues of 5-methylcytidine occur in every 1,000 RNA residues.3 It has been used in epigenetics research, especially in studies involving DNA methylation processes involved in the establishment of genomic imprinting and in the control of gene expression and differentiation.4
1.Edelheit, S., Schwartz, S., Mumbach, M.R., et al.Transcriptome-wide mapping of 5-methylcytidine RNA modifications in bacteria, archaea, and yeast reveals m5C within archaeal mRNAsPLoS Genetics9(6)e1003602(2013) 2.Mahto, S.K., and Chow, C.S.Probing the stabilizing effects of modified nucleotides in the bacterial decoding region of 16S ribosomal RNABioorg. Med. Chem.21(10)2720-2726(2013) 3.Guntaka, R.V., Katz, R.A., Weiner, A.J., et al.Effect of 5-methylcytidine on virus production in avian sarcoma virus-infected chicken embryo cellsJ. Virol.29(2)475-482(1979) 4.Zhu, R., Howorka, S., Pr?ll, J., et al.Nanomechanical recognition measurements of individual DNA molecules reveal epigenetic methylation patternsNat. Nanotechnol.5(11)788-791(2010)