- Gastrointestinal cancer
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Gemcitabine Inhibits the Progression of Pancreatic Cancer by Restraining the WTAP/MYC Chain in an m6A-Dependent Manner
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Pei Cao, Weigang Zhang, Junyi Qiu, Zuxiong Tang, Xiaofeng Xue, Tingting Feng
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Cancer Res Treat. 2024;56(1):259-271. Published online August 16, 2023
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.4143/crt.2022.1600
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 Abstract
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- Purpose
Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a common malignant tumor of the digestive system, and its 5-year survival rate is only 4%. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA methylation is the most common post-transcriptional modification and dynamically regulates cancer development, while its role in PC treatment remains unclear.
Materials and Methods
We treated PC cells with gemcitabine and quantified the overall m6A level with m6A methylation quantification. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analyses were used to detect expression changes of m6A regulators. We verified the m6A modification on the target genes through m6A-immunoprecipitation (IP), and further in vivo experiments and immunofluorescence (IF) assays were applied to verify regulation of gemcitabine on Wilms’ tumor 1–associated protein (WTAP) and MYC.
Results
Gemcitabine inhibited the proliferation and migration of PC cells and reduced the overall level of m6A modification. Additionally, the expression of the “writer” WTAP was significantly downregulated after gemcitabine treatment. We knocked down WTAP in cells and found target gene MYC expression was significantly downregulated, m6A-IP also confirmed the m6A modification on MYC. Our experiments showed that m6A-MYC may be recognized by the “reader” IGF2BP1. In vivo experiments revealed gemcitabine inhibited the tumorigenic ability of PC cells. IF analysis also showed that gemcitabine inhibited the expression of WTAP and MYC, which displayed a significant trend of co-expression.
Conclusion
Our study confirmed that gemcitabine interferes with WTAP protein expression in PC, reduces m6A modification on MYC and RNA stability, thereby inhibiting the downstream pathway of MYC, and inhibits the progression of PC.
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Citations
Citations to this article as recorded by  - WTAP-mediated N6-methyladenosine modification promotes the inflammation, mitochondrial damage and ferroptosis of kidney tubular epithelial cells in acute kidney injury by regulating LMNB1 expression and activating NF-κB and JAK2/STAT3 pathways
Fan Huang, Yuchen Wang, XiaoLi Lv, Chenda Huang
Journal of Bioenergetics and Biomembranes.2024; 56(3): 285. CrossRef
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