ceRNA Cross-Talk in Cancer: When ce-bling Rivalries Go Awry

Abstract

The cancer transcriptome is characterized by aberrant expression of both protein-coding and non-coding transcripts. Similar to mRNAs, a significant portion of the non-coding transcriptome including long non-coding RNAs and pseudogenes harbors microRNA-response elements. The recent discovery of competitive endogenous RNAs (ceRNA), natural decoys that compete for a common pool of microRNAs, provides a framework to systematically functionalize MRE-harboring non-coding RNAs and integrate them with the protein-coding RNA dimension in complex ceRNA networks. Functional interactions in ceRNA networks aid coordinating a number of biological processes and, when perturbed, contribute to disease pathogenesis. In this review, we discuss recent discoveries that implicate natural miRNA decoys in the development of cancer.

MALAT1 functions as a competing endogenous RNA to mediate Rac1 expression by sequestering miR-101b in liver fibrosis

“…Nevertheless, emerging evidence shows that some lncRNAs may partake in the ceRNA regulatory circuitry. [36][37][38] Han et al 39 showed that MALAT1 mediates serum response factor by competing for miR-133 in myogenesis, which implies that MALAT1 can act as a ceRNA. Our results indicated that the direct binding ability of the miR-101b on the MALALT1 transcript, in line with the previous report.…”

WITHDRAWN: Endometrial epithelial cell apoptosis is inhibited via a ciR8073-miR181a-neurotensis pathway during embryo implantation

“…Accumulated studies revealed that ceRNAs could serve as post-transcriptional regulators of protein-coding gene expression by decoying miRNAs from other target transcripts, such as lncRNAs, mRNAs, pseudogenes and circRNAs [21,22]. In this study, based on the high-throughput RNAsequencing data, we constructed putative ceRNA networks by integrating lncRNAs, circRNAs, mRNAs and miRNAs in the endometrium of dairy goats.…”

The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition activator ZEB1 initiates a prometastatic competing endogenous RNA network

“…In The Cancer Genome Atlas human lung adenocarcinoma database (https://gdc.cancer.gov/) (n = 1,016 tumors), ZEB1 and ITGA1 mRNA levels were positively correlated (Supplemental Figure 4B). In 344SQ cells, ITGA1 and miR181b were approximately equimolar (~300 copies per cell) (Figure 3B), an important determinant of ceRNA functionality (21). ITGA1 contains 3 predicted miR-181b-binding sites in the coding sequence and 1 site in the 3′-untranslated region (3′-UTR) (www.…”