Abstract: N6-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is the most prevalent and abundant type of internal post-transcriptional RNA modification in eukaryotic cells. METTL3  is a methylation modifying enzyme, which can directly or indirectly affect biological processes, such as RNA degradation, translation and splicing. In addition, it was found that 67% of 3’-UTR regions containing m⁶A sites had at least one miRNA binding site, and the number of m⁶A at 3’-UTR sites was closely related to the binding sites of miRNA. With the improvement of human living standards, obesity has become a very serious and urgent problem. The essence of obesity is the accumulation of excess fat. Exploring the origin and development mechanisms of adipocyte from the perspective of fat deposition has always been a hotspot in the field of adipocyte research. The aim of the present review is to focus on METTL3  regulating fat deposition through mRNA/adipocyte differentiation axis and pri-miRNA/pre-miRNA/target genes/adipocyte differentiation and to provide a theoretical basis according to the currently available literature for further exploring this association. This review may provide new insights for obesity, fat deposition disease and molecular breeding.
Keywords: METTL3, m⁶A methylation, miRNA, adipocyte differentiation, intramuscular fat