Potential Impact of N6-Methyladenosine RNA Methylation on Vision Function and the Pathological Processes of Ocular Diseases: New Discoveries and Future Perspectives

Xiaohua Li^{1,2,3,4,*,†}, Binyun Ma^5,†, Mengyu Liao^6,7,8, Lingke Li^1,2,3,4, Xiaodan Zhang³, Mei Du^6,7,8, Jinguo Yu^6,7,8, Shikun He^9,*, Hua Yan^6,7,8,*

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¹ Department of Ophthalmology, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, 450003 Zhengzhou, Henan, China

² Henan Eye Hospital, Henan Eye Institute, Henan Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 450003 Zhengzhou, Henan, China

³ Department of Ophthalmology, People’s Hospital of Zhengzhou University, 450003 Zhengzhou, Henan, China

⁴ Department of Ophthalmology, People’s Hospital of Henan University, 450003 Zhengzhou, Henan, China

⁵ Department of Medicine/Hematology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA

⁶ Department of Ophthalmology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, 300052 Tianjin, China

⁷ Laboratory of Molecular Ophthalmology, Tianjin Medical University, 300052 Tianjin, China

⁸ Department of Pharmacology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Inflammation Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, 300052 Tianjin, China

⁹ Department of Pathology and Ophthalmology, USC Roski Eye Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA

^*Correspondence: zyyyanhua@tmu.edu.cn (Hua Yan); xhl_6116@163.com (Xiaohua Li); shikunhe@usc.edu (Shikun He)
^†These authors contributed equally.
Academic Editor: Graham Pawelec

Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2022, 27(7), 207; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.fbl2707207

Submitted: 14 April 2022 | Revised: 23 May 2022 | Accepted: 24 May 2022 | Published: 28 June 2022

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Eye and Vision Research)

This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.

Abstract

N6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation/modification plays a critical role in various biological processes through post-transcriptional ribonucleic acid (RNA) modification, which involves RNA processing, nuclear export, translation and decay. Functionally, m6A modification may be involved in ocular cell growth and differentiation, stem cell identity, development, haemostasis and innate versus adaptive immunity. Aberrations in m6A methylation may mediate numerous pathological conditions in the eye, including microorganism infection, inflammation, autoimmune disease, senescence, degeneration, epithelial–mesenchymal transition, fibrosis, angiogenesis, tumorigenesis and complex eye diseases. In this review, we have discussed the relevance of m6A modification to precision medicine, stem cell directional differentiation, biomarkers of eye diseases and m6A methylation activators and inhibitors. In addition, we summarised the challenges and future research directions in the field related to visual function and eye diseases.

Keywords

eye

m6A

pathogenesis

vision function

Funding

81873681/National Natural Science Foundation of China

81770952/National Natural Science Foundation of China

20JCQN005/Basic Research Program of Henan Eye Hospital

ZC20200296/“23456” project of Henan Provincial People’s Hospital

Figures

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Fig. 1.

Ribose phosphate backbone of the RNA strand and principal RNA methylation modifications. (A) Primary structure of the RNA strand. Adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and uracil (U) are connected by 3 ${{}^{\prime}}$ -5 ${{}^{\prime}}$ ester bonds between ribose and phosphate. (B) The chemical structure of various methylated nucleosides. (C) Distribution of methylated nucleosides in the mRNA cap structure, 5 ${{}^{\prime}}$ - or 3 ${{}^{\prime}}$ -untranslated region (UTR) or the coding region of mRNA.

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Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) Print ISSN 2768-6701 Electronic ISSN 2768-6698