YTHDF3 (YTH N6-Methyladenosine RNA Binding Protein 3) is a member of the YTH (YT521-B homology) superfamily containing YTH domain. Human YTH domain family proteins include three members, YTHDF1-3, which mainly localized in the cytoplasm. YTHDF3 specifically recognizes and binds N6-methyladenosine (m6A)-containing RNAs and promotes RNA translation efficiency, sharing m6A-containing mRNAs targets with YTHDF1 and YTHDF2, and regulates different processes depending on the context. It facilitates the translation of targeted mRNAs in cooperation with YTHDF1 by binding to m6A-containing mRNAs and interacting with 40S and 60S ribosome subunits. It can also act as a regulator of mRNA stability in cooperation with YTHDF2 by binding to m6A-containing mRNA and promoting their degradation. YTHDF3 recognizes and binds m6A-containing circular RNAs (circRNAs) and promotes their translation. circRNAs are generated through back-splicing of pre-mRNAs, a non-canonical splicing process promoted by dsRNA structures across circularizing exons. N6-methylated adenine (m6A) is prevalently present in nearly all RNA types and can be found in all organisms from bacteria to humans. It preferentially appears around stop codons and within long internal exons in mammalian messenger RNAs. m6A plays an important role in the efficiency of mRNA splicing, processing, translation efficiency, editing and mRNA stability. m6A also takes place in other RNA molecules, such as primary miRNA (pri-miRNAs).
