Trending with Impact: Role of RNA Modification Regulatory Proteins in Melanoma

Oncotarget published this trending research paper on June 4, 2019, entitled, “Dissecting the role of RNA modification regulatory proteins in melanoma,” by researchers from the Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Since RNA is a key molecule that drives every cellular process, their deregulation is present in nearly all human disease and play a causative role.” The researchers explain that alterations among RNAs may arise due to altered activity or expression of the enzymes/proteins which are involved in the modification process. In this study, the team used multiple publicly available bioinformatics platforms to, first, analyze RNA alterations in melanoma samples, and then, to comprehensively analyze RNA modification regulatory proteins among melanoma samples. The publicly available datasets included: The Cancer Genome Atlas, The Human Protein Atlas, Oncomine, and the UALCAN database. “Our study started with the analysis of various genetic alterations (amplifications, mutations/deletion) as well as RNA overexpression of these RNA modification regulatory proteins in The Cancer Genome Atlas melanoma database.” Based on their analyses of these databases, reverse transcription quantitative PCR, soft-agar assays, validation by shRNA-mediated knockdown, and statistical analysis, the team identified what they believe are the most relevant RNA modifying proteins that play a crucial role in the development of melanoma. They found that METTL4 and DNMT3A RNA-modifying enzymes/proteins are both necessary for melanoma growth and overexpressed in melanoma. “Based on this we infer that the upregulated expression of RNA modification regulatory proteins METTL4 and DNMT3A play a key role in melanoma initiation or progression.” Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://oncotarget.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Foncotarget.26959 DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.26959 Full text - https://www.oncotarget.com/article/26959/text/ Correspondence to - Romi Gupta - romigup@uab.edu Keywords - RNA modifications, epitranscriptome, melanoma, MAPK, BRAF mutant melanoma, skin cancer About Oncotarget Oncotarget is a bi-weekly, peer-reviewed, open access biomedical journal covering research on all aspects of oncology. To learn more about Oncotarget, please visit https://www.oncotarget.com or connect with: SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/oncotarget Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Oncotarget/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/oncotarget YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/OncotargetYouTube/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/oncotarget Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/oncotarget/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/Oncotarget/ Oncotarget is published by Impact Journals, LLC please visit https://www.ImpactJournals.com or connect with @ImpactJrnls Media Contact MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM 18009220957