Role of main RNA modifications in cancer: N6-methyladenosine, 5-methylcytosine, and pseudouridine

Abstract

Cancer is one of the major diseases threatening human life and health worldwide. Epigenetic modification refers to heritable changes in the genetic material without any changes in the nucleic acid sequence and results in heritable phenotypic changes. Epigenetic modifications regulate many biological processes, such as growth, aging, and various diseases, including cancer. With the advancement of next-generation sequencing technology, the role of RNA modifications in cancer progression has become increasingly prominent and is a hot spot in scientific research. This review studied several common RNA modifications, such as N6-methyladenosine, 5-methylcytosine, and pseudouridine. The deposition and roles of these modifications in coding and noncoding RNAs are summarized in detail. Based on the RNA modification background, this review summarized the expression, function, and underlying molecular mechanism of these modifications and their regulators in cancer and further discussed the role of some existing small-molecule inhibitors. More in-depth studies on RNA modification and cancer are needed to broaden the understanding of epigenetics and cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis.

The Epitranscriptomic Mechanism of Metal Toxicity and Carcinogenesis

“…Abnormal RNA modifications have been detected in a variety of diseases [ 24 , 33 , 34 ]. In particular, studies showed that RNA modification dysregulations could play important roles in cancer initiation, metastasis, prognosis, and responses to therapies [ 23 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Mechanistically, RNA modifications could affect the expression of genes involved in important oncogenic pathways such as the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, the PI3K-Akt-mTOR pathway, the JAK-STAT pathway, the MAPK pathway, the p53 pathway, the Hippo Pathway, etc.…”

Editorial: Crosstalk between epigenetics on the development of cancer and cardiovascular disease

“…Several excellent reviews have been published on the general role of epigenetic mechanisms in cancer ( Dawson and Kouzarides, 2012 ) while, more recently, the scientific community is focusing on specific cancer diseases with the major goal to identify potential diagnostic biomarkers and/or putative experimental therapy approaches ( Xue et al, 2022 ; Zhang et al, 2022 ). Testicular cancer is an excellent example of this line of research.…”

RNA modification patterns based on major RNA modifications define tumor microenvironment characteristics in glioblastoma

“…RNA modification is an important method of posttranscriptional gene regulation that affects many biological processes 4 , 5 . The most common modification of mRNA is the addition of 6-methyladenosine (m6A), which regulates the biogenesis and function of non-coding RNAs, including long non-coding RNAs, microRNAs, and circular RNAs 6 .…”