The Potential Roles of RNA N6-Methyladenosine in Urological Tumors

Yang Li; Yu-Zheng Ge; Luwei Xu; Zheng Xu; Quanliang Dou; Ruipeng Jia

doi:10.3389/fcell.2020.579919

The Potential Roles of RNA N6-Methyladenosine in Urological Tumors

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2020 Sep 9:8:579919. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2020.579919. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yang Li¹, Yu-Zheng Ge¹, Luwei Xu¹, Zheng Xu¹, Quanliang Dou¹, Ruipeng Jia¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Urology, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

N6-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is regarded as the most abundant, prevalent and conserved internal mRNA modification in mammalian cells. M⁶A can be catalyzed by m⁶A methyltransferases METTL3, METTL14 and WTAP (writers), reverted by demethylases ALKBH5 and FTO (erasers), and recognized by m⁶A -binding proteins such as YTHDF1/2/3, IGF2BP1/2/3 and HNRNPA2B1 (readers). Emerging evidence suggests that m⁶A modification is significant for regulating many biological and cellular processes and participates in the pathological development of various diseases, including tumors. This article reviews recent studies on the biological function of m⁶A modification and the methylation modification of m⁶A in urological tumors.

Keywords: N6-methyladenosine (m6A); erasers; readers; urological tumors; writers.

Publication types

Review