Reduced m6A modification predicts malignant phenotypes and augmented Wnt/PI3K-Akt signaling in gastric cancer

As the most abundant epigenetic modification on mRNAs and long non-coding RNAs, N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification extensively exists in mammalian cells. Controlled by writers (methyltransferases), readers (signal transducers), and erasers (demethylases), m6A influences mRNA structure, maturation, and stability, thus negatively regulating protein expression in a post-translational manner. Nevertheless, current understanding of m6A's roles in tumorigenesis, especially in gastric cancer (GC) remains to be unveiled. In this study, we assessed m6A's clinicopathological relevance to GC and explored the underlying mechanisms.

By referring to a proteomics-based GC cohort we previously generated and the TCGA-GC cohort, we merged expressions of canonical m6A writers (METTL3/METTL14), readers (YTHDF1/YTHDF2/YTHDF3), and erasers (ALKBH5/FTO), respectively, as W, R, and E signatures to represent m6A modification. We stratified patients according to these signatures to decipher m6A's associations with crucial mutations, prognosis, and clinical indexes. m6A's biological functions in GC were predicted by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and validated by in vitro experiments.

We discovered that W and R were potential tumor suppressive signatures, while E was a potential oncogenic signature in GC. According to W/R/E stratifications, patients with low m6A-indications were accompanied with higher mutations of specific genes (CDH1, AR, GLI3, SETBP1, RHOA, MUC6, and TP53) and also demonstrated adverse clinical outcomes. GSEA suggested that reduced m6A was correlated with oncogenic signaling and phenotypes. Through in vitro experiments, we proved that m6A suppression (represented by METTL14 knockdown) promoted GC cell proliferation and invasiveness through activating Wnt and PI3K-Akt signaling, while m6A elevation (represented by FTO knockdown) reversed these phenotypical and molecular changes. m6A may also be involved in interferon signaling and immune responses of GC.

Our work demonstrated that low-m6A signatures predicted adverse clinicopathological features of GC, while the reduction of RNA m6A methylation activated oncogenic Wnt/PI3K-Akt signaling and promoted malignant phenotypes of GC cells.