Fig. 3

Correlation between m⁶A modification and mRNA abundance in strawberry fruit. a Volcano plot showing hypermethylated (red) and hypomethylated (blue) m⁶A peaks in fruit at RS1 stage compared to those at S6 stage. S6, the growth stage 6; RS1, the ripening stage 1. b Volcano plot depicting hypermethylated (red) and hypomethylated (blue) m⁶A peaks in fruit at RS3 stage compared to those at RS1 stage. RS3, the ripening stage 3. c, d Heat map of m⁶A enrichment ratios of differential m⁶A peaks shown in a (c) and b (d). e The distribution characteristics of the differential m⁶A peaks shown in a and b. UTR, untranslated region; CDS, coding sequence. f Volcano plots displaying the expression ratios of transcripts containing differential m⁶A peaks shown in a and b. Transcripts with significantly higher and lower mRNA levels (fold change ≥ 1.5; P value < 0.05) in fruit at RS1 stage compared to those at S6 stage, or in fruit at RS3 stage compared to those at RS1 stage, are highlighted in red and blue, respectively. g, h Cumulative distribution of gene expression changes (g) and box plot of gene expression ratios (h) between fruit at RS1 and S6 or fruit at RS3 and RS1. The m⁶A-modified transcripts were divided into three categories, including hypermethylated, hypomethylated, and non-differential transcripts. i Box plot showing gene expression ratios based on the distributions of differential m⁶A peaks between fruit at RS1 and S6 stages. Asterisks indicate significant differences (***P < 0.001; Wilcoxon test)