Wang Kangjie, Kan Qinghui, Ye Yanchen, Qiu Jiachong, Huang Lin, Wu Ridong, Yao Chen
Division of Vascular Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
National-Guangdong Joint Engineering Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Vascular Disease, First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Genet. 2022 Nov 22;13:1055396. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.1055396. eCollection 2022.
N-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most prevalent non-cap reversible modification present in messenger RNAs and long non-coding RNAs, and its dysregulation has been linked to multiple cardiovascular diseases, including cardiac hypertrophy and atherosclerosis. Although limited studies have suggested that m6A modification contributes to abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) development, the full landscape of m6A regulators that mediate modification patterns has not been revealed. To distinguish the m6A methylation subtypes in AAA patients, an unsupervised clustering method was carried out, based on the mRNA levels of 17 m6A methylation regulators. Differentially expressed genes were identified by comparing clusters. An m6Ascore model was calculated using principal component analysis and structured to assess the m6A methylation patterns of single samples. Subsequently, the relationship between the m6Ascore and immune cells and the hallmark gene set was analyzed. Finally, pairs of circRNA-m6A regulators and m6A regulators-m6A related genes were used to establish a network. We identified three m6A methylation subtypes in the AAA samples. The m6Acluster A and C were characterized as more immunologically activated because of the higher abundance of immune cells than that in m6Acluster B. The m6Acluster B was less enriched in inflammatory pathways and more prevalent in pathways related to extracellular matrix stability. Subsequently, we divided the individual samples into two groups according to the m6Ascore, which suggested that a high m6Ascore predicted more active inflammatory pathways and higher inflammatory cell infiltration. A network consisting of 9 m6A regulators and 37 circRNAs was constructed. This work highlighted that m6A methylation modification was highly correlated with immune infiltration of AAA, which may promote the progression of AAA. We constructed an individualized m6Ascore model to provide evidence for individualized treatments in the future.
N6-甲基腺苷(m6A)是信使核糖核酸(mRNA)和长链非编码核糖核酸中最普遍存在的非帽端可逆修饰,其失调与多种心血管疾病有关,包括心肌肥大和动脉粥样硬化。尽管有限的研究表明m6A修饰促成腹主动脉瘤(AAA)的发展,但介导修饰模式的m6A调节因子的全貌尚未揭示。为了区分AAA患者中的m6A甲基化亚型,基于17种m6A甲基化调节因子的mRNA水平,采用了一种无监督聚类方法。通过比较聚类来鉴定差异表达基因。使用主成分分析计算m6A评分模型,并构建该模型以评估单个样本的m6A甲基化模式。随后,分析了m6A评分与免疫细胞及特征基因集之间的关系。最后,利用环状RNA(circRNA)-m6A调节因子对和m6A调节因子-m6A相关基因对建立网络。我们在AAA样本中鉴定出三种m6A甲基化亚型。m6A聚类A和C的特征是免疫激活程度更高,因为其免疫细胞丰度高于m6A聚类B。m6A聚类B在炎症途径中的富集程度较低,在与细胞外基质稳定性相关的途径中更为普遍。随后,我们根据m6A评分将个体样本分为两组,这表明高m6A评分预示着更活跃的炎症途径和更高的炎症细胞浸润。构建了一个由9个m6A调节因子和37个circRNA组成的网络。这项工作强调m6A甲基化修饰与AAA的免疫浸润高度相关,这可能促进AAA的进展。我们构建了一个个性化的m6A评分模型,为未来的个体化治疗提供依据。