The roles and mechanism of m6A RNA methylation regulators in cancer immunity
Lu Chen, Ying He, Jinyu Zhu, Shujuan Zhao, Shasha Qi, Xudong Chen, Hao Zhang, Ziheng Ni, Yuan Zhou, Gongxing Chen, Shuiping Liu, Tian Xie
Abstract
N6-methyladenosine (m6A), the most common internal modification in RNA, can be regulated by three types of regulators, including methyltransferases (writers), demethylases (erasers), and m6A binding proteins (readers). Recently, immunotherapy represented by immune checkpoint blocking has increasingly become an effective cancer treatment, and increasing shreds of evidence show that m6A RNA methylation affects cancer immunity in various cancers. Until now, there have been few reviews about the role and mechanism of m6A modification in cancer immunity. Here, we first summarized the regulation of m6A regulators on the expression of target messenger RNAs (mRNA) and their corresponding roles in inflammation, immunity response, immune process and immunotherapy in various cancer cells. Meanwhile, we described the roles and mechanisms of m6A RNA modification in tumor microenvironment and immune response by affecting the stability of non-coding RNA (ncRNA). Moreover, we also discussed the m6A regulators or its target RNAs which might be used as predictor of cancer diagnosis and prognosis, and shed light on the potentiality of m6A methylation regulators as therapeutic targets in cancer immunity.