20
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
1 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      MicroRNAs in cancer biology and therapy: Current status and perspectives

      review-article

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          The study of a class of small non-coding RNA molecules, named microRNAs (miRNAs), has advanced our understanding of many of the fundamental processes of cancer biology and the molecular mechanisms underlying tumor initiation and progression. MiRNA research has become more and more attractive as evidence is emerging that miRNAs likely play important regulatory roles virtually in all essential bioprocesses. Looking at this field over the past decade it becomes evident that our understanding of miRNAs remains rather incomplete. As research continues to reveal the mechanisms underlying cancer therapy efficacy, it is clear that miRNAs contribute to responses to drug therapy and are themselves modified by drug therapy. One important area for miRNA research is to understand the functions of miRNAs and the relevant signaling pathways in the initiation, progression and drug-resistance of tumors to be able to design novel, effective targeted therapeutics that directly target pathologically essential miRNAs and/or their target genes. Another area of increasing importance is the use of miRNA signatures in the diagnosis and prognosis of various types of cancers. As the study of non-coding RNAs is increasingly more popular and important, it is without doubt that the next several years of miRNA research will provide more fascinating results.

          Related collections

          Most cited references111

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Origins and Mechanisms of miRNAs and siRNAs.

          Over the last decade, approximately 20-30 nucleotide RNA molecules have emerged as critical regulators in the expression and function of eukaryotic genomes. Two primary categories of these small RNAs--short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs)--act in both somatic and germline lineages in a broad range of eukaryotic species to regulate endogenous genes and to defend the genome from invasive nucleic acids. Recent advances have revealed unexpected diversity in their biogenesis pathways and the regulatory mechanisms that they access. Our understanding of siRNA- and miRNA-based regulation has direct implications for fundamental biology as well as disease etiology and treatment.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Microarray analysis shows that some microRNAs downregulate large numbers of target mRNAs.

            MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of noncoding RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression in plants and animals. To investigate the influence of miRNAs on transcript levels, we transfected miRNAs into human cells and used microarrays to examine changes in the messenger RNA profile. Here we show that delivering miR-124 causes the expression profile to shift towards that of brain, the organ in which miR-124 is preferentially expressed, whereas delivering miR-1 shifts the profile towards that of muscle, where miR-1 is preferentially expressed. In each case, about 100 messages were downregulated after 12 h. The 3' untranslated regions of these messages had a significant propensity to pair to the 5' region of the miRNA, as expected if many of these messages are the direct targets of the miRNAs. Our results suggest that metazoan miRNAs can reduce the levels of many of their target transcripts, not just the amount of protein deriving from these transcripts. Moreover, miR-1 and miR-124, and presumably other tissue-specific miRNAs, seem to downregulate a far greater number of targets than previously appreciated, thereby helping to define tissue-specific gene expression in humans.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Posttranscriptional regulation of the heterochronic gene lin-14 by lin-4 mediates temporal pattern formation in C. elegans.

              During C. elegans development, the temporal pattern of many cell lineages is specified by graded activity of the heterochronic gene Lin-14. Here we demonstrate that a temporal gradient in Lin-14 protein is generated posttranscriptionally by multiple elements in the lin-14 3'UTR that are regulated by the heterochronic gene Lin-4. The lin-14 3'UTR is both necessary and sufficient to confer lin-4-mediated posttranscriptional temporal regulation. The function of the lin-14 3'UTR is conserved between C. elegans and C. briggsae. Among the conserved sequences are seven elements that are each complementary to the lin-4 RNAs. A reporter gene bearing three of these elements shows partial temporal gradient activity. These data suggest a molecular mechanism for Lin-14p temporal gradient formation: the lin-4 RNAs base pair to sites in the lin-14 3'UTR to form multiple RNA duplexes that down-regulate lin-14 translation.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Genes Dis
                Genes Dis
                Genes & Diseases
                Chongqing Medical University
                2352-4820
                2352-3042
                08 July 2014
                September 2014
                08 July 2014
                : 1
                : 1
                : 53-63
                Affiliations
                [1]Section of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
                Author notes
                []Corresponding author. jchen@ 123456bsd.uchicago.edu
                Article
                S2352-3042(14)00005-1
                10.1016/j.gendis.2014.06.004
                4249815
                25473652
                14869559-9aa5-47a7-86df-37a6af174ec4
                Copyright © 2014, Chongqing Medical University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

                This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

                History
                : 23 June 2014
                : 25 June 2014
                Categories
                Article

                cancer biology,drug therapy,mirnas,nanoparticles,oncogene,tumor suppressor

                Comments

                Comment on this article