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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Renal Pharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1506896
This article is part of the Research Topic Diabetic Kidney Disease: Routes to drug development, pharmacology and underlying molecular mechanisms, Volume II View all 15 articles
Landscape analysis of m6A modification regulators reveals LRPPRC as a key modulator in tubule cells for DKD: A multi-omics study
Provisionally accepted- 1 China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
- 2 Mental health center of Dongcheng district, Beijing, China
- 3 Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
Background Diabetic Kidney Disease (DKD) is a serious complication of diabetes, imposing a substantial medical burden. The significance of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification in the pathogenesis of DKD has become increasingly prominent. Aim This study aimed to investigate the specific expression patterns of the m6A geneset in the pathogenesis of DKD. Method Bulk RNA, single-cell and spatial transcriptome were utilized to clarify the hub gene. 3 types of machine learning algorithms were applied. The possible compounds were screened based on the DSigDB database. Result GSEA has revealed the potential m6a-associated pathways such as cGMP-PKG pathway. GSVA showed that the two types of m6a regulation,namely m6a-readers and m6a-writers, were generally suppressed in DKD patients. The output of 3 types of machine learning algorithm and differential analysis has determined the LRPPRC as the hub gene. LRPPRC was downregulated in the LOH, PODO, CT, and CD-ICB cell populations, most of which were tubular cells. It exhibited the decreasing trend over time, particularly pronounced in LOH cells. The low activity of LRPPRC was mainly detected in the injured renal tubules. In clinical patients, the expression levels of LRPPRC mRNA in DKD showed the tendency to be down-regulated and exhibited the potential correlations with Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) and proteinuria according to the Nephroseq database. The lobeline might be an important potential compound involved in the regulation of LRPPRC and other m6a genes. Its actual efficacy needs to be verified in vivo or in vitro.
Keywords: m6A modification, Diabetic kidney disease, LRPPRC, tubules, Single-cell transcriptome, Spatial transcriptome
Received: 06 Oct 2024; Accepted: 03 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Yu, Jian, Sai and Wu. 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:
Xiai Wu, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, 100029, Beijing Municipality, China
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