Department of Clinical Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin D08 W9RT, Ireland.
Thoracic Oncology Research Group, St. James's Hospital, Dublin D08 RX0X, Ireland.
Cells. 2020 Jul 22;9(8):1758. doi: 10.3390/cells9081758.
5-methylcytosine is often associated as an epigenetic modifier in DNA. However, it is also found increasingly in a plethora of RNA species, predominantly transfer RNAs, but increasingly found in cytoplasmic and mitochondrial ribosomal RNAs, enhancer RNAs, and a number of long noncoding RNAs. Moreover, this modification can also be found in messenger RNAs and has led to an increasing appreciation that RNA methylation can functionally regulate gene expression and cellular activities. In mammalian cells, the addition of m5C to RNA cytosines is carried out by enzymes of the NOL1/NOP2/SUN domain (NSUN) family as well as the DNA methyltransferase homologue DNMT2. In this regard, NSUN2 is a critical RNA methyltransferase for adding m5C to mRNA. In this review, using non-small cell lung cancer and other cancers as primary examples, we discuss the recent developments in the known functions of this RNA methyltransferase and its potential critical role in cancer.
5-甲基胞嘧啶通常被认为是 DNA 中的一种表观遗传修饰物。然而，它也越来越多地存在于大量的 RNA 物种中，主要是转移 RNA，但也越来越多地存在于细胞质和线粒体核糖体 RNA、增强子 RNA 以及许多长非编码 RNA 中。此外，这种修饰也可以在信使 RNA 中发现，这使得人们越来越认识到 RNA 甲基化可以在功能上调节基因表达和细胞活动。在哺乳动物细胞中，RNA 胞嘧啶的 m5C 加工作用于 NOL1/NOP2/SUN 结构域（NSUN）家族的酶以及 DNA 甲基转移酶同源物 DNMT2 来完成。在这方面，NSUN2 是一种关键的 RNA 甲基转移酶，可将 m5C 添加到 mRNA 中。在这篇综述中，我们主要以非小细胞肺癌和其他癌症为例，讨论了这种 RNA 甲基转移酶的已知功能的最新进展及其在癌症中的潜在关键作用。
