Letter by Li and Yu Regarding Article, “Ten-Eleven Translocation-2 (TET2) Is a Master Regulator of Smooth Muscle Cell Plasticity”

We read with great interest of the article by Liu and coworkers1 about master epigenetic regulator, ten-eleven translocation-2 (TET2), regulating smooth muscle cell (SMC) plasticity. TET2 is 1 of very recently discovered DNA demethylases which oxidizes 5-methylcytosine (5-mC) to generate 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC). Liu et al discovered that TET2 knockdown prevents rapamycin-induced SMC differentiation, whereas TET2 overexpression is sufficient to induce SMC contractile phenotype. Notably, they found that ectopic expression of TET2 is sufficient to direct SMC differentiation from fibroblasts. To our knowledge, this is the first report …