5-Methyluridine

The chemical compound 5-methyluridine (symbol m5U or m5U), also called ribothymidine (rT), is a pyrimidine nucleoside. It is the ribonucleoside counterpart to the deoxyribonucleoside thymidine, which lacks a hydroxyl group at the 2' position. 5-Methyluridine contains a thymine base joined to a ribose pentose sugar. It is a white solid.

m5U is one of the most common modifications made to cellular RNA. It almost universally occurs in position 54 (part of the T arm) of eukaryotic and bacterial tRNA, serving to stabilize the molecule. The same "T-loop" motif occurs in many other forms of noncoding RNA such as tmRNA and rRNA. Loss of the tRNA modification does not usually produce a different, less fit, phenotype.