Prof. Meng Xiaoming and Prof. Wu Yonggui, with their teams from School of Pharmacy and Nephrology Department of The First Affiliated Hospital of AHMU, on Science Translational Medicine (IF=17.992) which is the top-ranking subordinate journal of Science, co-published an article entitled Inhibition of METTL3 attenuates renal injury and inflammation by alleviating TAB3 m6A modifications via IGF2BP2-dependent mechanisms. Prof. Meng and Prof. Wu being the joint corresponding authors, Wang Jianan, Doctoral Candidate from School of Pharmacy, Wang Fang, Master-degree Candidate, Ke Jing, Pathologist from Pathology Department of The First Affiliated Hospital of AHMU, and Li Zeng, Associate Professor from School of Pharmacy are the joint first authors. Anhui Medical University is the institution of all the authors.
The research analyzed the role of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modifications in acute kidney injury (AKI), identifying the elevated expression of N6-adenosine-methyltransferase-like 3 (METTL3) in different AKI mouse models, human biopsies as well as the cultured tubular epithelial cells (TECs). The mechanism may be related to c-Jun promoting the transcription of METTL3. Conditional knockout of METTL3 from mouse kidneys attenuated cisplatin- and ischemic/reperfusion(I/R)-induced renal dysfunction, injury, and inflammation, which was verified both in vitro and in vivo.
The research suggested that the METTL3/TAB3 axis is a potential target in the prevention and treatment of AKI, funded by both National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and AHMU Cooperative Research Project of Preclinical and Clinical Medicine.
Paper link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abk2709