Post-transcriptional RNA modification occurs on all types of RNA and plays a vital role in regulating every aspect of RNA function. Thanks to the development of high-throughput sequencing technologies, transcriptome-wide profiling of RNA modifications has been made possible. With the accumulation of a large number of high-throughput datasets, bioinformatics approaches have become increasing critical for unraveling the epitranscriptome. We review here the recent progress in bioinformatics approaches for deciphering the epitranscriptomes, including epitranscriptome data analysis techniques, RNA modification databases, disease-association inference, general functional annotation, and studies on RNA modification site prediction. We also discuss the limitations of existing approaches and offer some future perspectives.

转录后 RNA 修饰发生在所有类型的 RNA 上，在调节 RNA 功能的各个方面发挥着至关重要的作用。由于高通量测序技术的发展，RNA 修饰的转录组范围分析已成为可能。随着大量高通量数据集的积累，生物信息学方法对于解开表观转录组变得越来越重要。我们在此回顾了解读表观转录组的生物信息学方法的最新进展，包括表观转录组数据分析技术、RNA修饰数据库、疾病关联推断、一般功能注释和RNA修饰位点预测研究。我们还讨论了现有方法的局限性并提供了一些未来的观点。