WTAP-mediated abnormal m6A modification promotes cancer progression by remodeling the tumor microenvironment: bibliometric and database analyses.

BACKGROUND: Wilms' tumor 1 associated protein (WTAP) is an essential component of the m6A methyltransferase complex. The research on WTAP has been continuously developed and promoted in recent years. It is needed to make systematic specific bibliometric and database analyses on WTAP, to identify the cooperation and impact of authors, countries, institutions and journals, to evaluate the knowledge base and find the hotspot trends, and to detect the emerging topics regarding WTAP research.

METHODS: The related articles and reviews of WTAP in the Web of Science Core Collection from January 1999 to June 2022 were retrieved, and CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to perform bibliometric and knowledge-map analyses. Multiple databases were used to explore the expression level of WTAP in pan-cancers and its correlation with prognosis and immune infiltration.

RESULTS: In recent years, the number of publications on WTAP research has increased rapidly. Among the journals publishing WTAP research, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology had the most papers, while Nature papers were most cited. The country with the highest number of publications on WTAP was China, and China Medical University was the institution with the most publications. The most prominent author was Haruo Sugiyama from Japan. Four main aspects of WTAP research included m6 A modification, tumor association, cancer therapy, and regulatory mechanisms. The research frontiers and hotspots were m6 A modification, methyltransferase, demethylation, tumor microenvironment (TME), and immunotherapy. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the expression of WTAP was up-regulated in a variety of tumors and closely related to TME and survival prognosis.

CONCLUSIONS: From the bibliometric and database analyses on the researches on WTAP, it is suggested that up-regulated WTAP in cancers may promote cancer progression by mediating abnormal m6 A modifications to reshape the TME, thereby affecting the survival prognosis of the patients. The information would provide helpful references for scholars focusing on WTAP and provide new insights for WTAP as a prognostic evaluation and immunotherapy for tumors in the future.