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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Genet.
Sec. Genetics of Aging
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2025.1477542
This article is part of the Research Topic Rising Stars in Genetics of Aging View all 5 articles
Unveiling the potential impact of RNA m5C methyltransferases NSUN2 and NSUN6 on cellular aging
Provisionally accepted- 1 Key Laboratory of Zoonoses Research, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China
- 2 China-Japan Union Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China
- 3 Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Model, College of Animal Science, Jilin University, Changchun, Hebei Province, China
- 4 Department of Anesthesiology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China
NSUN2 and NSUN6, two family members of NOL1/NSUN protein, are mainly responsible for catalyzing the formation of 5-methylcytosine (m5C) in RNA and highly involved in the physiological and pathological processes of many diseases. To investigate the biological functions of NSUN2 and NSUN6, NSUN2 -/-and NSUN6 -/-HEK293T cell lines were separately constructed by CRISPR/Cas9. We found no significant interaction between the protein expression of NSUN2 and NSUN6. Notably, the ablation of NSUN2 or NSUN6 reduced cell proliferation and increased expression of the senescence-associated marker P27, whereas more β-galactosidase-positive cells were observed in response to H2O2-induced oxidative stress. Moreover, the expression of NSUN2 and NSUN6 was significantly reduced in the HGPS premature aging cell lines by the LMNA G609G mutation. Taken together, we demonstrated that NSUN2 and NSUN6 may be inextricably linked to cellular aging and thus provide potential novel strategies for the clinical therapeutics of aging and age-associated disease in the future.
Keywords: RNA methylation, 5-Methylcytosine, NSun2, NSUN6, Aging
Received: 08 Aug 2024; Accepted: 19 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Han, Ji, Zhang, Liang, Zhao and Hou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ruizhe Hou, China-Japan Union Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, 130033, Jilin Province, China
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