A survey of dietary effects on tRNA abundance and modifications

Abstract

Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) play a central role in protein translation and are increasingly recognized as dynamic regulators of gene expression. Both physiological and environmental signals can modulate tRNA abundance and chemical modifications, yet the impact of dietary cues on the tRNA landscape remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated the effects of two distinct dietary interventions--low-protein and high-fat diets--on tRNA abundance and modification profiles across multiple mouse tissues. We conducted a comprehensive analysis of tRNA abundance and modification changes in response to these nutritional challenges using RNA mass spectrometry and Ordered Two-Template Relay sequencing (OTTR-seq), a modified-base-sensitive tRNA sequencing method. Our results reveal both shared and tissue-specific alterations in abundance and modifications of specific nuclear and mitochondrial genome-encoded tRNAs in response to dietary conditions at isotype, isoacceptor, and isodecoder levels. As many of the tissue-specific or diet-responsive tRNA modifications have been previously reported to affect decoding efficiency or translational fidelity, these results have implications for understanding translational adaptation in response to dietary conditions.