Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Mar 15, 2025; 16(3): 102126
Published online Mar 15, 2025. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v16.i3.102126
N6-methyladenosine methyltransferase Wilms tumor 1-associated protein impedes diabetic wound healing through epigenetically activating DNA methyltransferase 1
Ren-Jie Xiao, Tian-Jiao Wang, Dan-Yin Wu, Shui-Fa Yang, Hai Gao, Pei-Dong Gan, Yang-Yan Yi, You-Lai Zhang
Ren-Jie Xiao, Department of Anesthesiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China
Tian-Jiao Wang, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Medical Materials and Devices, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biomedical Materials, Key Laboratory of Biomaterials and Nanotechnology for Cancer Immunotherapy, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin 300192, China
Tian-Jiao Wang, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Key Laboratory of Bioactive Materials, Ministry of Education and College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
Dan-Yin Wu, Shui-Fa Yang, Hai Gao, Pei-Dong Gan, Yang-Yan Yi, You-Lai Zhang, Department of Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China
Author contributions: Xiao RJ and Zhang YL designed the research study; Xiao RJ, Wang TJ, Wu DY and Yang SF performed the experiments; Xiao RJ, Gao H and Gan PD collected the data; Xiao RJ, Yi YY and Zhang YL analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of The Second Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College of Nanchang University on March 6, 2024.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
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: No additional data are available.
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: You-Lai Zhang, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College of Nanchang University, No. 32 Fuzhou Road, Donghu District, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China. youlaizhang@163.com
Received: October 11, 2024
Revised: December 7, 2024
Accepted: January 8, 2025
Published online: March 15, 2025
Processing time: 102 Days and 18.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Diabetes mellitus is significantly correlated with non-healing wounds, which cause physiological and psychological distress to patients. N6-methyladenosine (m6A)-associated epigenetic regulation plays a crucial role in diabetes mellitus. However, the function of m6A methyltransferase tumor 1-associated protein (WTAP) in diabetic wound healing remains unclear. Our study demonstrated that WTAP was elevated in high glucose-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells and epigenetically regulates the m6A modification of DNA methyltransferase 1, repressing diabetic wound healing. This study provides novel insights into the mechanisms by which the m6A regulator WTAP inhibits diabetic wound healing.