Since its discovery two decades ago, MEX3A has been found to possess post-transcriptional regulatory capabilities due to its RNA-binding capacity and E3 ligase activity. The regulatory function of MEX3A is involved in normal tissue development, particularly in the intestinal and nervous systems , as well as in human diseases, such as tumorigenesis and tumor prognosis. However, the causes behind this feature and whether its functions and regulatory mechanisms in normal and tumor tissues overlap remain unexplored. Thus, by systematically reviewing previous relevant literature, we first provided a macro-level summary of the functions and regulatory mechanisms of MEX3A in tissue homeostasis maintenance, immune regulation, tumorigenesis, and tumor development across different tissues. Furthermore, we performed an integrative data re-mining using publicly available single-cell RNA sequencing datasets from both normal and tumor tissues of mice and/or humans, along with MEX3A gene expression data from cancers of various types and/or stages, for further investigation. Our research findings suggest that MEX3A may serve as a flourishing source for both normal and tumor tissues through context-dependent regulation of cellular stemness. This review provides a systematic and comprehensive summary of MEX3A, highlighting examples establishing connections between its expression features, molecular functions, and biological outcomes.
Long et al. (Fri,) studied this question.