He Yuqing, Lin Juanjuan, Kong Danli, Huang Mingyuan, Xu Chengkai, Kim Taek-Kyun, Etheridge Alton, Luo Yanhong, Ding Yuanlin, Wang Kai
Institute of Medical Systems Biology, Dongguan Scientific Research Center, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, Guangdong, China;
Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, Guangdong, China;
Clin Chem. 2015 Sep;61(9):1138-55. doi: 10.1373/clinchem.2015.241190. Epub 2015 Aug 3.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the existence of stable regulatory RNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs), in the circulation and have shown that the spectrum of these extracellular miRNAs is affected by various pathologic conditions including cancers.
Circulating miRNAs have been the focus of numerous cancer biomarker discovery efforts over the past few years; however, a considerable number of these studies have yielded inconsistent and irreproducible findings. Here, we have summarized and compared the results of studies covering 8 different cancer types to address key questions, including the possibility of using circulating miRNA to detect cancers and what factors may affect miRNA signatures. Although identifying circulating miRNA signatures to detect specific types of early stage cancers can be challenging, study results suggest that it may be possible to use miRNAs to detect cancers in general.
Circulating miRNA is a rich source for potential disease biomarkers; however, factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic, that may affect measurement of circulating miRNA have not been fully characterized. Better understanding of intra- and intercellular miRNA trafficking and the fundamental biology of cancer cell-derived lipid vesicles may facilitate the development of circulating miRNA-based biomarkers for cancer detection and classification.
大量研究已证实循环中存在稳定的调控RNA，即微小RNA（miRNA），并表明这些细胞外miRNA的谱受到包括癌症在内的各种病理状况的影响。
在过去几年中，循环miRNA一直是众多癌症生物标志物发现工作的重点；然而，这些研究中有相当一部分得出了不一致且不可重复的结果。在此，我们总结并比较了涵盖8种不同癌症类型的研究结果，以解决关键问题，包括使用循环miRNA检测癌症的可能性以及哪些因素可能影响miRNA特征。尽管识别循环miRNA特征以检测特定类型的早期癌症可能具有挑战性，但研究结果表明，一般而言使用miRNA检测癌症或许是可行的。
循环miRNA是潜在疾病生物标志物的丰富来源；然而，可能影响循环miRNA测量的内在和外在因素尚未得到充分表征。更好地理解细胞内和细胞间的miRNA转运以及癌细胞衍生脂质囊泡的基础生物学，可能有助于开发基于循环miRNA的生物标志物用于癌症检测和分类。
