METTL3 inhibits primed-to-naïve transition of pluripotent stem cells through m6A-YTHDF2-pluripotency/Gstp1 mRNA degradation axis
N6-methyladenosine (m<sup>6</sup>A) plays crucial roles in development and cellular reprogramming. During embryonic development, pluripotency transitions from a naïve to a primed state, and modeling the reverse primed-to-naïve transition (PNT) provides a valuable framework for investigating pluripotency regulation. Here, we show that inhibiting METTL3 significantly promotes PNT in an m<sup>6</sup>A-dependent manner. Mechanistically, we found that suppressing METTL3 and YTHDF2 prolongs the lifetimes of pluripotency-associated mRNAs, such as Nanog and Sox2, during PNT. In addition, Gstp1 was identified as a downstream target of METTL3 inhibition and YTHDF2 knockout. Gstp1 overexpression enhances PNT, whereas its inhibition impedes the transition. Overall, our findings suggest that YTHDF2 facilitates the removal of pluripotency gene transcripts and Gstp1, thereby promoting PNT reprogramming through m<sup>6</sup>A-mediated posttranscriptional control.
Authors
- Jiekai Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5168-7074)
- Rujin Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0363-7387)
- Guangliang Hong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5822-7705)
- Kaixin Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5038-0422)
- Zhihao Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0028-9439)
- Jiangping He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1425-3530)
- Guan‐Zheng Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6797-9319)
- Lingmei Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2909-2730)
- Hongzhi Dong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1175-2921)
- Mingli Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7900-4714)
- Haoyu Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8995-3486)
- He Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5588-0661)
- Sa Li
- Jia‐Jie Hao
Institutions
- Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine (CN)
- Department of Health (CN)
- Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
- Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health (CN)
- Guangzhou University (CN)
- Guangzhou Experimental Station (CN)
- Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (CN)
- Key Laboratory of Guangdong Province (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Guangzhou Medical University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Cell Regeneration
- Published
- 2025-05-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s13619-025-00241-1
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- RNA modifications and cancer
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.81
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province
- Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province