In early December 2019, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) causing a cluster of pneumonia of unknown etiology originated from Wuhan, China, and spread rapidly throughout the world. The WHO (World Health Organization) changed the status of COVID-19 outbreak from epidemic into pandemic on March 11, 2020.
→What this article adds:Since the emergence of COVID-19, the number of publications on this topic has dramatically grown. About 84% of COVID-19 documents are open-access. The focus of COVID-19 literature in terms of countries, journals, institutions, terms, and keywords which all were discussed in detail sets out the research hotspots and important topics in this field.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is a serious threat to lung cancer patients. Hereby, we hypothesize that Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may contribute to lung cancer progression by increasing extracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels and hyperactivating the purinergic P2X purinoceptor 7 receptor (P2X7R). Hyperactivation of P2X7R by increased extracellular ATP may stimulate multiple signaling pathways and factors such as NLRP3 inflammasome; as a result, interleukin (IL)-1β, and IL-18 pro-inflammatory cytokines are released, JNK, Rho kinase, HMGB1-RAGE, PI3K/AKT, hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α), and ERK. NLRP3 activation may play a pivotal role in fatal cytokine storm in critically ill patients with COVID-19 and tumor progression in patients with lung cancer. Consequently, inhibiting these signaling pathways may deviate immune responses toward anti-tumoral responses, and suppress lung cancer progression and cytokine storms. Therefore, targeting P2X7R by means of oxidized ATP and anti-P2X7 monoclonal antibodies may provide promising therapeutic approaches to prevent lung cancer progression in COVID-19 patients; however, no clinical trials have yet been conducted, and their clinical efficacy remains to be elucidated.
Background
However, advanced technologies have been developed in the treatment of various cancers, but the mortality rate from cancer is still very high. Drug resistance is a major problem for patients with cancer, which causes the treatment process to fail. In addition to inhibiting drug resistance, targeted therapy is also very important in treatment.
Main body:
Nowadays, miRNAs have gained increasing interest as they play a major role in both drug resistance and targeted therapy. MicroRNA (miRNA) is an important part of non-coding RNA that regulates gene expression at a post-transcriptional level. The prevailing studies about miRNA expression have been expanded into a variety of neoplasms. MiR-424 targets genes involved in various cellular processes and can participate in proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, invasion, angiogenesis, and drug resistance and sensitivity.
Conclusion
In this study, we focus on the role of miR-424s in many cancer types by displaying the potential target genes associated with each cancer, as well as briefly describing the clinical uses of miR-424s as a diagnostic and predictive tool in malignancies.
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