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CANCER BIOLOGY

A Wnt twist in FTO’s role in cancer progression

Nature Cancer volume 2, pages 579–580 (2021)Cite this article

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FTO, an m6A RNA demethylase, is known mainly as an oncoprotein in various cancer types. FTO is now shown to act as a cancer suppressor in a subset of epithelial tumors through an interplay between epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and Wnt signaling.

In contrast to the known oncogenic role of FTO in acute myeloid leukemia and melanoma6,7,8, Jeschke et al. observed that in multiple cancer datasets, including those of TCGA and METABRIC, FTO is downregulated in a variety of epithelial tumors5. To explore the importance of this observation, they experimentally depleted several breast and prostate cancer cell lines of FTO and found that this increased cell clonogenicity, invasiveness and migratory potential in vitro, as well as the progression of tumors xenotransplanted into mice in vivo. The administration of meclofenamic acid, an inhibitor of FTO, to mice bearing xenografts derived from patients with breast cancer also promoted disease progression. These observations are consistent with FTO’s role as a tumor suppressor in a set of epithelial cancer subtypes.

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Fig. 1: FTO acts as a tumor suppressor in diverse epithelial cancers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Albertas Navickas & Hani Goodarzi

  2. Department of Urology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Albertas Navickas & Hani Goodarzi

  3. Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Albertas Navickas & Hani Goodarzi

  4. Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Albertas Navickas & Hani Goodarzi

Authors
  1. Albertas Navickas
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  2. Hani Goodarzi
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Correspondence to Hani Goodarzi.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Navickas, A., Goodarzi, H. A Wnt twist in FTO’s role in cancer progression. Nat Cancer 2, 579–580 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-021-00224-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-021-00224-6

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