Age-Associated Expression of DIMT1 (Dimethyladenosine Transferase) in Human Mesenchymal Stromal Cells: A Candidate for Multi-Gene Aging Signatures

Abstract

BackgroundDIMT1 is a highly conserved methyltransferase that functions as an N6,N6-dimethyladenosine transferase responsible for modifying two adjacent adenosines in the 18S rRNA. This protein is also a crucial, yet catalytically independent, ribosome maturation factor essential for the biogenesis of the 40S small ribosomal subunit. Given the established roles of ribosome biogenesis and methylation dynamics in biological aging, we investigated the relationship between DIMT1 expression and chronological donor age in Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSCs). MethodsTranscriptomic data for DIMT1 from a publicly available human MSC dataset (n = 61 donors, age range: 17-84 years) were analyzed. Pearson correlation and simple linear regression were performed to assess the association between normalized gene expression and donor age. ResultsA statistically significant positive correlation was identified between DIMT1 expression and donor age (Pearson r = 0.4282, R2 = 0.183, p = 0.0006). Linear regression modeling demonstrated that expression increases with advancing age, exhibiting a slope of 0.0045. ConclusionDIMT1 expression demonstrates a statistically significant positive correlation with donor age in MSCs, though age explains only 18.3% of expression variance. This relationship warrants further investigation of DIMT1 as a component of multi-gene aging signatures. The observed pattern may reflect compensatory responses in ribosome biogenesis or altered methylation dynamics associated with aging, though mechanistic validation is required.