MicroRNAs in Colorectal Cancer: from Diagnosis to Targeted Therapy

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the major healthcare problems worldwide and its processes of genesis include a sequence of molecular pathways from adenoma to carcinoma. The discovery of microRNAs, a subset of regulatory non-coding RNAs, has added new insights into CRC diagnosis and management. Together with several causes of colorectal neoplasia, aberrant expression of oncomiRs (oncogenic and tumor suppressor miRNAs) in cancer cells was found to be indirectly result in up-or down-regulation of targeted mRNAs specific to tumor promoter or inhibitor genes. The study of miRNAs as CRC biomarkers utilizes expression profiling methods from traditional tissue samples along with newly introduced non-invasive samples of faeces and body fluids. In addition, miRNAs could be employed to predict chemo-and radio-therapy responses and be manipulated in order to alleviate CRC characteristics. The scope of this article is to provide a comprehensive review of scientific literature describing aberrantly expressed miRNAs, and consequently dysregulation of targeted mRNAs along with the potential role of miRNAs in CRC diagnosis and prognosis, as well as to summarize the recent findings on miRNA-based manipulation methods with the aim of advancing in anti-CRC therapies.

Association between the DICER rs1057035 Polymorphism and Cancer Risk: Evidence from a Meta-analysis of 1,2675 Individuals

“…To the best of our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis study examining the precision effect of DICER rs1057035 variation on overall cancer risk. miRNAs can regulate cell proliferation, cell differentiation, apoptosis by interfering (mainly inhibiting) gene expression at the posttranscriptional level and thus indicate an important role in cancer development and progression Hu et al, 2014;Kavitha et al, 2014;Orang and Barzegari, 2014). Many studies have investigated that miRNAs were deregulated in various types of human cancer (Guo et al, 2013;Xiu et al, 2014).…”

Circulating Long RNAs in Serum Extracellular Vesicles: Their Characterization and Potential Application as Biomarkers for Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer

“…mRNAs, such as adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), and Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) can directly participate in the development of colorectal cancer as tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes (3). As noncoding RNAs, miRNA, and lncRNA can indirectly result in upor downregulation of targeted mRNAs specific to tumor promoters or inhibitor genes, nearly 100 dysregulated miRNAs have been identified in relation to colorectal cancer, and each is able to affect the expression of more than one targeted mRNA (4). lncRNAs affect cancer through various mechanism, such as chromatin remodeling, chromatin interaction, competing endogenous RNAs, and natural antisense transcripts.…”

Regulatory role of microRNA184 in osteosarcoma cells

“…The pathogenesis of osteosarcoma, including development and metastasis, involves multiple genes (Garajova et al, 2014;Phuah and Nagoor, 2014). MicroRNAs (miRNAs), which widely exist in animals and plants, are non-coding, small, regulatory RNAs (Orang and Barzegari, 2014;Saadatian et al, 2014) that can negatively regulate gene expression. They function via complete or incomplete pairing with target genes, or by inhibiting the downstream transcription of target proteins, mRNA degradation, and protein translation (Gandhi et al, 2014).…”