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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Mar 15, 2025; 16(3): 101328
Published online Mar 15, 2025. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v16.i3.101328
Published online Mar 15, 2025. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v16.i3.101328
SMAD specific E3 ubiquitin protein ligase 1 accelerates diabetic macular edema progression by WNT inhibitory factor 1
Li-Fang Liang, Jia-Qi Zhao, Yi-Fei Wu, Hui-Jie Chen, Tian Huang, Xiao-He Lu, Department of Ophthalmology, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 515282, Guangdong Province, China
Co-first authors: Li-Fang Liang and Jia-Qi Zhao.
Author contributions: Liang LF designed and managed the research and wrote the original manuscript; Zhao JQ provided the research methodology and guidance; Wu YF provided resources for this research; Chen HJ analyzed and managed the data and images; Huang T organized the data; Lu XH wrote the review, edited the manuscript and provided funding. Liang LF and Zhao JQ contributed equally to this work as co-first authors.
Supported by Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, No. 2022A1515012346.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University (No. 2024-KY-274-01) and all patients signed an informed consent form.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: Animal study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University (No. LAEC-2024-114).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE Guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE Guidelines.
Data sharing statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xiao-He Lu, Doctor, Department of Ophthalmology, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, No. 253 Gongye Avenue Central, Guangzhou 515282, Guangdong Province, China. luxh63@163.com
Received: September 11, 2024
Revised: December 6, 2024
Accepted: January 2, 2025
Published online: March 15, 2025
Processing time: 131 Days and 18.1 Hours
Revised: December 6, 2024
Accepted: January 2, 2025
Published online: March 15, 2025
Processing time: 131 Days and 18.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: In this study, we demonstrated that insulin like growth factor 2 mRNA binding protein 2 upregulates SMAD-specific E3 ubiquitin protein ligase (SMURF) 1 expression in an N6-methyladenosine-dependent manner, and subsequently SMURF1 activates the Wnt/β-catenin-vascular endothelial growth factor signaling pathway by promoting ubiquitination and degradation of WNT inhibitory factor 1 to promote autophagy, which ultimately disrupts the tight junctions of the retinal pigment epithelium cells and thus led to diabetic macular edema.