Abstract
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma ranks seventh in incidence of malignant tumours in the world. Although there are treatments including surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, drug resistance to treatment is caused by various reasons, and the survival rate of patients remains frustrating. To overcome the bottleneck of treatment at this stage, it is urgent to identify possible diagnostic and prognostic markers. N6-methyladenosine is a methylation modification on the sixth N atom of adenine which is the most abundant epitope transcriptome modification in mammalian genes. N6-methyladenosine modification is reversible and results from the interaction among writers, erasers and readers. A large number of studies have proven that N6-methyladenosine modification has important significance in promoting the progression and treatment of tumours and have made great progress in research. In this review, we introduce how N6-methyladenosine modification promotes the occurrence and development of tumours, the mechanism of drug resistance, and new findings of N6-methyladenosine modification in radiotherapy and chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy. N6-methyladenosine modification provides more possibilities for improving the overall survival rate and prognosis of patients.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32170910), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20211124), Zhenjiang Key Research and Development Programme (SH2021037) and Medical Research of Health and Health Commission, Jiangsu Province (Z2020056).
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XYS, SQF and XY conceived the idea and wrote the manuscript. XP and RKW collated the data. XW and HQL (corresponding author) revised and edited the manuscript. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.
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Sun, X., Fu, S., Yuan, X. et al. RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification in HNSCC: molecular mechanism and therapeutic potential. Cancer Gene Ther 30, 1209–1214 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41417-023-00628-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41417-023-00628-9
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